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INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

TO THE 



STUDY OF POETRY 



CHARLES W. KENT, M. A., Pil. D., 

Professor of English Literature in the University of Virginia. 




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Published by 

ANDERSON BROS., 

Publishers and Booksellers, University Start-ion, 

Charlottesville, Virginia. 

1895. 



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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1895, by 
CHARLES \V. KENT. 






A PREFATORY NOTE. 



This inadequate and incomplete introduction to the 
study of poetry has been hurriedly prepared for the 
use this session of a large class of students, whom I 
did not wish to subject to the inconvenience of copy- 
ing so much from the blackboard. They are to be 
considered merely as an outline, to be supplemented 
by explanations, suggestions, illustrations, examples, 
and questions. It is the author's intention to make use 
of the notes in this form, at least one more session, and 
then to revise, expand, and amplify by numerous ex- 
amples, for the purpose of more permanent publication. 
Any suggestions from the class, or from any one into 
whose hands these rough notes fall, will be gratefully 
considered. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTES TO THE STUDY 

OF POETRY. 



I.— DEFINITION. 

Poetry is the expression of human interests in ar- 
tistic verse. 

.No attempt is to be made here to justify this defini- 
tion, for the whole purpose of the notes is to expound 
fully its terms ; but, to establish a prejudice in its favor, 
it may be compared with some of the important defi- 
nitions now current. 

Austin's definition (Alfred Austin — On the Position 
and Prospect of Poetry) reduced to its simplest terms 
is this. Poetry is the glorified representation' of all* 
that is seen, felt, thought or done by man. 

Courthope (The Liberal Movement in English Liter- 
ature, Essay I) defines poetry as the art of producing 
pleasure by the just expression of imaginative thought 
and feeling in metrical language. 

Watts in his excellent contribution to the Encyclo- 
pedia Britannica, on Poetry says : Absolute poetry is 
the concrete and artistic expression of the human mind 
in emotional and rhythmical language. 

And Stedman (The Nature of Poetry) after review- 
ing a number of definitions formulates his as follows : 
Poetry is rhythmical, imaginative language, expressing 
the invention, taste, thought, passion, and insight of the 
human soul. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTES 



DEFINITION EXPLAINED. 



Poetry is the expression of human interests in artistic 
verse. 

There naturally inheres in the words "human inter- 
ests" used to include the subject matter of poetry a 
certain vagueness, but this vagueness is likewise in- 
herent in the subject matter itself. There must be 
some latitude in a term intended to cover so wide and 
so comprehensive a field. This term seems readily to 
include all suggested by the usual definitions and more, 
which they unwisely omit. There seems to be a gain 
in substituting verse for language, for this would in 
Watt's definition prove of immediate service in giving 
that element in the specific difference, which would 
limit his definition to poetry, and not include oratory 
as well. The degree of the artistic achievement is not 
"here under discussion. Whether the form is " glorified " 
or merely "emotional and rhythmical" or "imagi- 
native " as well, does not seem to be essential, but there 
must be, as all critics will agree, some attention to ar- 
tistic structure, for, without this, poetry could hardly be 
said to exist. The degree of art exhibited, whether natu- 
ral or acquired, will be one of the tests of good poetry, 
as the universality, intensity and personal appeal of the 
"human interests" involved will be another. That 
there should be a fitness in the expression, a harmony 
between the thing expressed and the form in which it 
is cast, or rather a vital union between the contents and 
their revelation seems to be a requisite of good poetry 
and this of course implies that the poet, the maker or 
creator, must be possessed of peculiar powers. 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 6 

It will be necessary then to discuss, beginning with 
that which is fundamental and in part mechanical and 
advancing toward that which is illusory and evasive : 
(1) Yerse. (2) The Artistic Elements of Poetry. (3) 
The Subject Matter of Poetry. (4) The Poet's Prov- 
ince and Qualities. (5) The Finished Work — Poetry. 

II.— VERSE. 

Music, dancing and poetry belong to the musical arts 
and have to do with time and motion in contradistinc- 
tion to those fine arts that have to do with space and 
rest. All of the problems connected with the mechan- 
ical structure of verse are problems of sound, and that 
without reference to whether the verse is to be read to 
the ear or merely by the eye, for it is obvious that, even 
when unpronounced, poetry is translated by the eye to 
the ear, and the impressions of harmony and melody 
are aural, not ocular. 

1. Syllable. 

The unit of sound in language is the syllable, which 
Sievers defines as a body of sound brought out with an 
independent, single, and unbroken breath. 

With reference to Quantity, syllables are long and 
short. 

With reference to Intensity, accented and unaccented. 

With reference to Pitch, high and low. 

Sound may in general be treated with reference to 
four particulars : 

I. Duration — how long a sound lasts — time of vi- 
bration. 



4 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

II. Intensity — how loud a sound is — excursion of 
vibration. 

III. Pitch — how high a sound is — rapidity of vi- 
bration. 

IV. Tone-color — how the sound is made up— nodes 
of vibration and fundamental tone. 

In the human voice, the musical instrument with 
which we are here concerned, the vibrations vary from 
65 to 1044 per second. 

2. Foot, or Bar. 

A combination of these units of sound, syllables, gives 
us the measure, bar, foot, tact, tempo, or measured in- 
terval of time. These bars or feet represent in any 
given verse fixed sound relations of equal or at least 
very similar time groups, and the foot is then the unit 
of the verse. 

3. Terse-Line. 

Verse-line, or line, may be defined as a set of specially 
related sounds, and is totally independent of contents 
(Lanier). The sounds may be represented by words, 
foreign, unintelligible or nonsensical. The word verse 
means a turning, and as far as it presents itself to the 
eye, the verse or line simply turns upon itself and re- 
peats the same form, or prepares for a different. But 
these lines or verses are not of arbitrary lengths. They 
are made up of a certain number of the verse-units or 
measures. The determination of the number of bars or 
feet is a measuring process to which the name metre 
is given. 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 



4. Metre. 



Metre is a measured portion of the rhythm. The 
basis of all verse is measured intervals of time, and the 
repetition of these fixed time intervals is rhythm. 

5. Rhythm. 

Rhythm (in verse) is the harmonious repetition of cer- 
tain fixed sound relations, and as Schipper says, Poeti- 
cal rhythm is to be recognized by the division of words, 
or syllables of a group of words, into single, equal or, 
at least, similar line groups. 

It should be emphasized, then, that the basis of all 
rhythm is time and that accent can never be its basis. 
Accent merely aids the ear in perceiving rhythm, by 
marking off the time groups and calling attention to 
them. In music, which is certainly rhythmical and 
based essentially upon time, every bar, unless otherwise 
marked, begins with an accented note and closes with 
an unaccented one. But the accent is not the basis 
of rhythm in music, it merely makes the hearer more 
sensible of it. Accent is never the creator of rhythm, 
but is its regulator or governor. Rhythm is essentially 
a result of Quantity, not of Accent, though both quan- 
tity and accent are inseparable from words. 

6. Accent. 

Accent is, first, Tonic, i. e. the pronunciation or word 
accent. This accent in English is movable, as author, 
authority, &c, though it may be kept on the roots as 
in pendant, dependant, independent, &c. 

Accent is, second, Rhythmic. This is verse accent 



6 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

which marks the intervals of time allotted to a bar or 
foot. This verse accent should fall on only such syl- 
lables as have word accents. Sometimes, however, in 
words, in which the word accent is uncertain, or ap- 
parently indifferent, such for instance as amen, corn- 
field &c, the rhythmic accent is hovering, that is, may 
fall on either syllable which the metre requires. In 
music, even where the accent naturally falls on the first 
note of the bar, sometimes for aesthetic reasons some 
other note is accented rather than this first note. This 
aesthetic accent is the wrenched accent in verse — an 
accent designedly thrown on a usually unaccented syl- 
lable, for the purpose of producing a definite effect. 

Accent is, third, Logical or Emphatic. This accent 
emphasizes the logical importance of the word that 
bears it. It falls upon a syllable having word accent. 
To illustrate some of these points by an example : — 

"We watched | her breath | ing through | the night, | 
Her breath | ing soft | and low, | 
As in | her breast | the wave | of light | 
Kept surg | ing to j and fro.'' | — Hood. 

Here we divide the verse-lines, or lines, into bars by 
this | . The word or tonic accent is in eacli word ob- 
vious, though it is clear that some monosyllables, such as 
in and to, have in their connection very little emphasis, 
yet upon these fall rhythmic accents, so weak how- 
ever, as to be hardly noted. The rhythmic accent falls 
regularly upon the last syllable of the bar. The first 
line is divided into four equal or similar parts and is a 
tetrameter, while the second is a trimeter. 

The logical accent which controls the recitation of 
good poetry, as of good prose, varies with the concep- 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 7 

tion of the writer. For instance, here in my reading 
it falls on watched, on breathing (2nd line), on breast 
and surging. 

III.— ARTISTIC ELEMENTS OF VERSE. 

While all that has been said about verse may be con- 
sidered a part of its artistic structure, we pass now to 
elements distinctively artistic. 

In reading prose the grammatical sentence is broken 
up into parts, each consisting of a group of words, one 
of which has a chief ictus. This is also true in poetry. 
In the verse above, the grouping corresponds with the 
lines, though this is not always the case. 

This process in music or in reading is called phrasing. 

1. Phrasing. 

Example. Poetry has been to me v its own ' exceeding 
great reward ' ; v it has soothed mj afflictions ; v it has 
multiplied and refined my enjoyments ; v it has endeared 
solitude ; v and it has given me the habit v of wishing to 
discover the good and the beautiful v in all that meets 
and surrounds me. v — Coleridge. This is perhaps natu- 
rally read by groups as indicated by the inverted 
caret. It is seen that in general the pause or rest by 
which one group is separated from another corresponds 
with the punctuation mark. But as such marks are 
not used with unvarying certitude they can not be con- 
sidered the criteria. Take a poetic example : — 

" I closed my lids,v and kept them close, v 
And the balls like pulses beat; v 
For the sky and the sea, v and the sea and the sky v 
Lay like a load on my weary eye, v 
And the dead were at my feet." v — Coleridge. 



8 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

This rhythmical phrase (or sentence as it is some- 
times called) which usually corresponds with the line, 
and is marked by the one prevailing logical ictus and 
the pause separating it from the next phrase was called 
the colon. 

In anticipation of the discussion of the stanzaic 
structure, it is well to note that the combination of 
these phrases or rhythmical sentences leads to rhyth- 
mical periods. 

Since rhythm depends upon tune, not upon accent, 
silences become in rhythmic structure of as much im- 
portance as sounds. These silences are called pauses 

or rests. 

2. Pauses. 

The Pause is, first, compensating : it takes the place 
of a sound or of sounds. When for instance the type 
of the verse is established to be iambic pentameter, 
then the line : — 

" Who would believe me ? O perilous months ! " 
is probably to be written (Lanier) so that in the third 
bar a quarter compensating pause occurs. 

Rhythmic pause (a). This occurs at the end of each 

line, whether there is a break in the sense or not. If 

the sense pauses as well, then the line is end-stopt. 

If there is no logical pause, but the sense runs on into 

the next line, then the line is called a run-on line. 

"Twilight and evening bell, 
And after that the dark! 
And may there be no sadness of farewell 
When I embark." — Tennyson. 

After the first line there is a rhythmical pause, ac- 
companied by a slight pause in the sense, but the con- 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 9 

junction connects it so closely with the next line that 
this should be designated as " run-on," while the second 
line is encl-stopt. — Cf. 3 and 4. Rhythmic pause oc- 
curs : (b). In the line. It may be here too the sign of 
distinct pause in the sense or merely of a pause in the 
recitation. There is great variety in the use of this 
line pause or csesura. It frequently occurs near the 
middle of the line 

"Come live with me|]and be my love." 

— Marlowe. 

And smooth or rough || with them is right or wrong." 

— Pope. 
"To him||who in the love of nature holds 

Communion with her visible forms, ||she speaks 

A various language ;j| for his gayer hours," &c. — Bryant. 

Note use particularly in Milton and Shakespeare. 
The foot caesura occurs where the end of the foot does 
not coincide with the end of a word. Compare, for 
example : 

" Puts forth | an arm | and creeps j from pine | to pine " 
with 

" With ro | sy slen | der fin | gers back | ward drew," | 

though this line would be better if treated with ana- 
crusis. (See below). 

Pause may be masculine, that is, after an accented 
syllable. 

Pause may be feminine, that is after an unaccented 
syllable. 

3. Tone Color. 

(a.) Rime. 

In grouping words into phrases, or rhythmical sen- 
tences, it has been noted that pause is one of the means 



10 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

by which this is accomplished, but agreement in sound, 
or rime, is another means frequently employed. 

Rime, generically, is the similarity between two or 
more sounds. 

1st. At the beginning of words. This is called Ini- 
tial Rime, or Alliteration. In this the initial letter of 
two or more words answer to each other. The condi- 
tions of alliteration are these : any vowel sound may be 
in alliteration with any vowel sound, whether other or 
the same. 

Any consonant sound with the same consonant sound. 

Alliteration was essential to Old English verse. — Cf . 
Beowulf, Elene, &c, &c. 

The use. of alliteration now is not as an essential 
but as an ornament of verse. 

" I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance, 
Among my skimming swallows; 
I make the netted sunbeam dance 

Against my sandy shallows." — Tennyson. 

2nd. At the end of words. This is End Rime and 
may occur at the end of lines, that is Final Rime or in 
the lines, that is, Involved or Internal Rime. In either 
the rime may be Proper, Improper, or Identical. 

The conditions of Proper Rime are — 

(a). Yowel sounds alike — now: plough, 
(b). Sounds before the vowels unlike — light : bright. 
(c). Sounds after the vowels alike — weak : pique, 
(d). Syllables must be similarly accented — city: 
pity ; cf . city : comity : committee. 

Frequently, however, occur what are called rimes to 
the eye, that is where the conditions seem 1 >y sight to 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 11 

be fulfilled, but in fact are not. These eye rimes vary, 
from those in which the only variance is that a primary 
and secondary accent are present, e. g., began : ocean, 
to those in which there is no similarity of sound, e. g., 
laughter ; daughter. 

Rimes may be single (masculine) rimes, that is, the 
rimes may fall on the last syllable of the word, or double 
(feminine) where rimes fall on penult, running ; cun- 
ning; or triple where the rimes fall on the ante pe- 
nult — unfortunate; importunate. Perhaps the rimes 
may be thrown even further back from the end. 

An Identical (or Perfect) Rime is where all the con- 
ditions of the Proper Rime except the second are ful- 
filled. When the sounds of the vowels, and the sounds 
before and after the vowels, are all alike in similarly 
accented words, as Ruth : ruth ; pain : pane, &c. 

The analysis of this stanza from Shelley's Cloud will 
illustrate the use of rime as an ornament of verse, for 
it is no longer essential to it : — 

" I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, 

From the seas and the streams ; 
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid 

In their noonday dreams. 
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken 

The sweet buds every one, 
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, 

As she dances about the sun. 
I wield the flail of the lashing hail, 

And whiten the green plains under, 
And then again I dissolve it in rain, 

And laugh as I pass in thunder." 

In this there is a very happy use of both Internal 
and Final Rimes. 



12 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

(b). Assonance and Phonetic Syzygy. 

Tone-color. — Under which Rime belongs, includes 
also assonance and phonetic syzygy. Frequently with- 
out any reference to the consonants similar vowel 
sounds are placed in juxtaposition or contrast. This 
is Assonance, and it may occur at the end of lines, to 
which the term is frequantly limited, or in the body 
of the lines. It is used for the purpose of linking 
parts of the poem together or for the purpose of tone- 
coloring. 

Assonance purposely used at the end of lines is rare. 

Cf . George Eliot's Spanish Gypsy : — 

"Maiden crowned with glossy blackness, 
Lithe as panther forest-roaming, 
Long armed naiad, when she dances 
On a stream of ether floating." 

More frequently assonance at the ends of lines is 
merely a failure to make the rime proper. Assonance 
in the body of the verse, on the contrary, is frequent, 
and, when used with proper caution, essentially artistic. 

Before giving examples of it the general character- 
istics of English vowels may be suggested. The scale 
of vowels may be written thus, without attempting to 
designate variations of pronunciation : 

I_E— A e (bat)— A (ah)— A°(aw)— O (more)— U. 

According to vibrations they run as follows : 

U (224) ; O (448) ; A (896) ; E (1792) ; I (3584), that 
is, they are divided naturally into high and low vowels. 

(Helmholtz shows that A, A e , E, I is an ascending 
minor chord). 

Considering, then, these vowels as musical notes, it is 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 13 

obvious that the low sounds and high sounds will be 
suited for different verse qualities. Let us notice them 
one by one, without, however, pushing this relation be- 
tween sound and sense too far or making our dicta too 
absolute. 

Beginning at the bottom of the scale. 

U=56 — is smooth, soothing ; it also expresses gloom, 
solemnity,slowness of motion, great size, &c. This 
pronounced by a tuneful voice in the middle reg- 
ister is a simple tone. 

(more) is noble, soulful, cf. Tennyson's oes in his 

"deep chested music; " it is fine as a sensuous im- 
pression ; it may express horror, deep-grief or other 
emotion, eminently sonorous. 

A° (au) caught — cf. awe, suggests slowness, solemnity, 
bulk. 

A-(ah), is large, hearty, sonorous, dignified. "It is the 
purest and most fundamental vowel-sound." — Cen- 
tury Dictionary. 

A e (=mat) — triviality, rapid movement, delicacy, physi- 
cal littleness — dissonant and displeasing — unmusi- 
cal. 

■E=(met) like A e (mat) \ Most used 

E=ee is intense — expresses feeling, plead- > alphabeti- 
ing, &c. ) cal sound - 

I=ee in machine — expresses feeling, pleading, &c. 

I— little, like A in significance. 

1 (in bright)=openness, brightness, tightness, &c. 

In general top vowels, high notes, express joy, gaiety, 
triviality, lightness of touch, rapidity of movement, 
physical littleness^ &c. They are often finical. 



14 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

Lower vowels, broad sounds, express solemnity, deep 
feeling, passion, slowness of movement, ponderosity, 
awe, horror. They are sometimes most heroic. For 
examples see Tennyson, Keats, Milton, Foe, Lanier, 
Shelley, &c, &c. 

Phonetic Syzygy. 

But the sound effects produced by assonance, or simi- 
lar vowel sounds answering to each other or giving a 
definite coloring, are not more interesting than those 
produced by consonants. Alliteration is one form of 
this, but the condition of alliteration is that this simi- 
larity of sound should be found in initial letters of ac- 
cented syllables. What name shall we give to the 
easily recognized phenomenon in these lines : 

"The moan of doves in immemorial elms 
And murmuring of innumerable bees," 

where the prevailing m-sound is characteristic and serves 
the purpose of linking the words together by a pleasing 
recurrence of similar sounds. Lanier follows Sylvester 
(Laws of Verse) in calling this Phonetic Syzygy and 
defines it as a succession of the same or similar conso- 
nant colors. 

A moment's investigation will show that consonants 
are unlike, that some are easy, others difficult of pro- 
nunciation ; that some are harsh, others soft. The 
artist consciously or unconsciously recognizes some of 
the values of these separate consonants. 

In general, harsh sounds convey harsh significance 
and soft sweet sounds express soft sweet meaning. 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 15 



TABLE OF CONSONANT SOUNDS. 





Labial. 


Lingual, 


Palatal. 


( Sonant, 

Mutes < 

( Surd, 


b 
P 


d 
t 


k 


( Sonant, 
Spirants.. ■< 

( Surd, 


V 

f 


dh 
th 




( Sonant, 
Sibilants. ■< 

( Surd, 




z 

s 


zh 
sh 


Aspirate, h (surd) 
Nasals, 


m 


n 


ng 


Semi-Yowels, 


y 


1 


w 


Liquids, 


r 


1 





Sonant mutes b, d, g often retard movement and oc- 
casion difficult junction. 

e. g. 

"The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums." 

Surd mutes p. t. k. (fricatives) show unexpectedness, 
vigor, explosive passion, startling effects. Some- 
times, too, in difficult combinations these retard 
movement. The letter t represents 6 per cent, of 

our sounds. 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds 
Admit impediments. 

Spirants, v (fricative) more common than f (cf. dh and 
th). What effects do they show? Characterized 
by maintenance of similar noises. 



16 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

Sibilants express softness, sweetness, musicality, and 
this is particularly true of the somewhat rare but 
beautiful, rich, melodious z, zh sounds. 

A low melodious thunder to the sound 
Of solemn psalms and silver litanies. 

Softly sweet in Lydian measures. 

Sh=most unpleasant effect : 

" The shrill-edged shriek of a mother divide the shuddering night." 

— Tennyson. 

Aspirate h occurs in combination, particularly in the 
whispered consonants s, sh, h, wh, and these ex- 
press quiet, secrecy, mystery, caution, fear, decep- 
tion. 

Nasals — m, occurs in murmuring sounds ; it is resonant 
and continuable, and, like u and the vowels can be 
distinguished at great distance, n most common 
sound in English pronunciation : ng — is it signifi- 
cant ? 

"And clattering flints battered with clanging hoofs." 

Liquids — 1 and r, softness, smoothness, liquidity, linger- 
ing effect, harmony, beauty. 1 1 &c, give easy 
junction and hence accelerate movement. The 
effect is trilling rather than smoothly continuable. 

Continuance, however, may be effected by reduplica- 
tion of syllable, as in murmur, <fcc, or by an added r or 
1 as in wrestle, dabble, &c. 

It has been seen, then, that tone-color may suggest 
certain effects, or by imitation and correspondence ac- 
tually produce them. Certain tones, by association or 
otherwise, do become significant of certain emotions. 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 17 

A simpler form of this is found in verbal onomato- 
poeia, that is, the effort to reproduce sounds in nature 
by similar names for the sound, or the thing character- 
ized by the sound, e. g., gurgle, splash, thud, hiss, buzz, 
cuckoo, &c. 

An advance upon this is the rhythmical onomato- 
poeia, in which the verse-form in its movement repro- 
duces by sound, without regard to the meaning of the 
words, the sense to be conveyed either by imitation or 
analogy. Read this for its sound-effect in imitation: 
Quadrupedante putrem sonit sonitu quatit ungula 
campum. 

Ghost-like from great dark room to great dark room. — Browning. 

Symbolizes here the slow and stealthy movement of 
gliding feet. 

" Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drops." 

Unusual accent on plumb represents the suddenness 
of the fall, &c. 

.Rhetorical onomatopoeia will be mentioned under 
Style. 

4. Metre. 

Rhythm is of two kinds, descending and ascending. 
In music the first note of a bar is accented, unless other- 
wise marked. In poetry to this 3-rhythm, the name 
trochaic is given — the trochaic representing the classic 
foot, that is a long and a short. While the musical 
notation in poetry is more suggestive and more service- 
able than this system, for convenience we shall use this 
classic notation. 



18 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

Descending rhythm of 3-time, usually two syllable 
to a bar, is called trochaic. 

Descending rhythm of 4-time usually three syllables 
to a bar, is dactylic. Ascending rhythm of 3-time, is 
called iambic. 

Ascending rhythm of 4-time is known as anapaestic. 
(a). Substitution. 

Before taking up these units of measure in their 
combinations into lines or verses, note that in place of 
two syllables, constituting 3-time and arranged in as- 
cending or descending rhythm, there may occur two 
syllables, both of which or neither of which may seem 
to be accented, i. e., instead of the trochee or iambus 
may occur a spondee or a pyrrhic. Further in this 
3-time rhythm and more frequently in 4-time rhythm 
may occur three syllables with accent placed somewhat 
different from the dactylic or anapaestic t}^pes. That is, 
instead of dactyl, or anapaest, we may have the amphi- 
brach ; or the amphimacer, or four syllables, forming the 
choriambus. This latter rarely, if ever, occurs in pre- 
vailing trochaic or iambic types. Putting any other 
than a regular bar in a line, the typic rhythm of which 
has been established, is known as substitution. 

(b) Slurring. 

As we have used the word syllable, it will be well to 
note that this is used to designate a unit of sound, not 
a part of a word. A letter or letters denoting, in word- 
divisions, a syllable may be passed over so rapidly in 
pronounciation as to be practically without quantity, 
and hence not destructive of rhythmic flow. This is 
called slurring. 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 



19 



(c) Elision. 

Again, a letter or letters may, in circumstances, dis- 
appear entirely in giving the sounds which occur. 
This is called elision. When and how this may obtain 
needs further discussion. 

(d) Metres. 

How are these bars (or feet) combined into a line? 
There may occur in the verse line : 
1. One Bar — one measure — monometer, and this may 

/ 

Splashing 



be trochaic 



or iambic, 



or dactylic, 
or anapaestic, 



Dashing. 

^ / 
Here end 
As just 
A friend 
I must. 

/ <,' <— 
Memory 
Tell to me. 

On thy bank 
In a rank. 



-Southey's Lodore. 



—Hood. 



George Eliot. 



— Drayton. 

Further examples : Cf . Hood, Southey's Lodore, 

Herrick's Daffodil, The White Island, &o. 

The monometer is rarely used in continuous verse 

form, but occurs frequently in stanzaic structure 

in association with ampler lines, and is particularly 

used in the refrain and bob. (See Stanza). 

l a - Monometer, with added syllable, or Dimeter catalec- 

tic. 

dactylic — 

Low in the ground. — Campbell. 

Note that this is the choriambus. 



20 



INTRODUCTORY NOTES 



2. Dimeter — may be 




trochaic — 




Beauty smiling 




Wit beguiling, 
iambic — 


— Dodsley 


Sweet singing Lark 




Be thou the Clark. 


Herrick. 


dactylic — 

Cannon to right of them. 


Tennyson, 



Cf. Longfellow's Skeleton in Armor, Drayton's 
Agmcourt, &c. 

anapaestic — 

On the emerald main. — Shelley. 

2 a - With added syllable — 

trochaic — 

Give the vengeance due 

To the valiant crew. — Dryden. 

iambic — 

She wept, sweet lady, 

And said, in weeping. — Kosetti. 

anapaestic — 

He is lost to the forest. — Scott. 

This line of two measures is still too short for 
frequent use in English verse as a sustained move- 
ment, but there are notable examples of it. 

Cf . Herrick, To the Lark / Swinburne, Song in 
Season ; Scott, Coronach ; Hood Bridge of Sighs / 
Skeltonic Yerse, &c. 

3. Trimeter — verse of three bars. 

trochaic — f 

Go where glory waits thee. — Moore, 

iambic — 

Oh let the solid ground 

Not fail beneath my feet. — Tennyson. 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 21 

dactylic — 

Sweeter than trumpet of victory. — Goold Brown. 

anapsestic — 

I am lord of the fowl and the brute. — Cowper. 

3 a - With added syllable, 
trochaic — 

Home they brought her warrior dead. — Tennyson. 
This is a very common verse-form, 
iambic — 

Ere God had built the mountains. — Cowper. 

dactylic — 

Pierce me in leading the host of the Lord. — Byron. 

anapaestic — 

Comes a pause in the day's occupations. — Longfellow. 
This verse of three stresses is not at all unusual. 
Cf . Surrey ; Shelley's Sky Lark ; Burns ; Browning, 
etc., etc 

4. Tetrameter — verse of four measures. 

trochaic-f- _ 

Space to breathe, how short soever. — Johnson. 

Cf. Longfellow's Hiawatha. 

iambic — 

Come live with me and be my love. — Marlowe. 

This iambic movement of four bars is the basis 
of the Short Rime Couplet (see Stanza) of French 
origin, and so frequently used by Chaucer. 

dactylic — 

Why art thou dim when thy sisters are radiant? — Boker. 

With slight variations, this is a frequent verse- 
form. 



22 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

anapaestic — 

For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight. — Campbell. 

4 a -With variations. 

trochaic — with added syllable — 

(?) Only kneel once more around the sod. — Hemans. 

iambic — with added syllable — 

Wee, sleek'it, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie. — Burns. 

dactylic (a) — with last foot a substituted trochee — 

Brightest and best of the sons of the morning. — Heber. 

(b) — with last foot a lengthened syllable — 

Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea. — Hogg. 

anaprestic — with added syllable and often substi- 
tuted iambics in first foot — 
If they rob us of name and pursue us with beagles. — Scott. 

How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood. — Words- 
worth. 

Is this latter the amphibrach movement? 

Verse of four stresses is the most natural, and 
one of the most usual of English verse forms. 
Perhaps this is due to an important physiological 
fact. Respiration in breathing occurs about twenty 
times a minute, and the heart usually beats about 
eighty times, or there is one breathing to four heart- 
beats. It has been shown that in a normal reading: of 
tretrameter, about twenty lines a minute are usually 
covered, and in these, of course, occur about eighty 
stresses. Now, since the heart-beats are essentially 
and fundamentally rhythmical, this coincidence of a 
heart-beat with each stress and a breathing with each 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY 



23 



line is surety not accidental in determining the te- 
trameter movement, as the movement of ballads or 
Volkpoesie; and of many narrative and other poems. 
Indeed, it might be well to use this as the starting 
point of the discussion of meters, and indicate that 
the shortening or lengthening of the line is for some 
special effect. For verses of four bars, compare ballad 
poetry : Chaucer, Johnson, Milton, Scott, Coleridge, 
Tennyson, Burns, Cowper, Longfellow, etc., etc. 

Pentameter — five bars — 

trochaic — 

Sing the tales of true, long-parted lovers. — Arnold. 
Eafael made a century of sonnets. — Browning. 

This is not a very popular verse-form, 
iambic — 

A knight there was and that a worthy man. — Chaucer. 

This is the most common of all English meas- 
ures. It is the heroic measure, so called because 
it is the form of epic verse in which heroes have 
been celebrated in Teutonic poetry. It occurs in 
the long-rimed couplet of Chaucer (see chapter on 
the History of English Rhythms), in the stanza; 
in rimeless or blank verse (cf. particularly, Shakes- 
peare and Milton). Its length gives it a dignity and 
slowness of movement, whether broken by pauses 
or not, especially suited to the serious unfolding of 
important matters. 

dactylic — 

'No example of this is at hand, though theoreti- 
cally, it is easily constructed. 

Dactyls of beautiful measurement, five in a monody. 



24 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

anapaestic — 

That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well. 

— Browning. 

5 a -With added syllable — 
trochaic — 

God, the soul of earth is kindled with thy grace. — Swinburne. 
Think, whene'er you see us, what our beauty saith. — Hunt. 

iambic — • 
On helm and harness rings the Norseman's hammer. — Longfellow. 

dactylic — 

Dance the elastic dactylics with musical cadences on. — Story, 
anapaestic — 

The pentameter movement, exceeding as it does 
the normal length, is almost always broken by a 
csesural pause, which gives a breathing place, and 
tends, too, to retard the movement of the line. 

For five stress verse, see The Old Dramatists ; 
Milton; Spenser's Fairy Queen; Gray's Elegy ; 
Arnold's Tristram and Iseult ; Browning's One 
Word More, &c. 

6. Hexameter — six measures, usually broken by pause, 
trochaic. 

Dark the shrine and dumb the fount of song thence welling. 

— Swinburne. 

Note, however, the ready division of this into a 
trimeter movement thus : and com- 

pare with Swinburne's choriambic verse. 

iambic — 

For she was wondrous faire as any living wight. — Spenser. 
The Naiaids and the nymphs extremely overjoy' d 
And on the winding banks all busily employ'd. — Drayton. 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 25 

This is the Alexandrine, which is frequently used 
in conjunction with the prevailing iambic penta- 
meter movement. It generally falls into two equal 
parts — trimeters. 

The dew was falling fast, the stars began to blink. 

— Wordsworth. 

The line is found in the Poulter's Measure (which 
see below), 
dactylic — 

Now, with a sprightlier springiness, bounding in triplicate 
syllables. — Story. 

Instead of this pure dactylic hexameter, as it is 

called, a line having a spondee or trochee in the last 

foot and allowing substitutions anywhere, is a more 

usual form. 

Stand like harpers hoar with beards that rest on their bosoms. 

— Longfellow. 

This measure brings us however into gread diffi- 
culties. Have we to do here with a real dactylic 
4-rhythm, or is this the same 3-rhythm with which 
we are familiar ? If the latter, then it is not in any 
sense to be confounded with the classic dactylic hex- 
ameter. Lanier indicates clearly that the 4-move- 
ment is used frequently for comic effect, and that 
the classic hexameter is not; also that the 3-rhythm 
is capable of great variety, is light, sprightly and 
flexible, while the classic 4-rhythm is dignified, 
steadfast, stately. See below for further discussion 
(History of Rhythms). 

anapaestic — 

Or the least little delicate aquiline curve in a sensitive nose. 

— Tennyson. 



26 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

The hexameter movement winch is broken by 
pause is no unusual form of English verse, particu- 
larly in the Alexandrine and in the so-called Dactylic 
Hexameter. 

7. Heptameter — By the necessity of breathing, this line 
must be broken and the pause so regularly occurs at 
the same place in the line that it is broken into tet- 
rameter and trimeter. 

trochaic— 

Hasten, Lord, who art nay Helper; let thine aid be speedy. 

— Quoted by Goold Brown. 

iambic — 

There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away. 

— Byron. 

Cf . Here the Latin Septenary (which see below — 
History of Rhythms). 

For contumely shown his priest, infectious sickness sent 
To plague the army, and to death by troops the soldiers went. 

— Chapman's Homer. 

dactylic — does it exist? 

anapoestic — very irregular. 

And we heard as a prophet that hears God's message against 
him, and may not flee. 

7 a - Heptameter — with variations or added syllable, 
trochaic — with added syllable. 

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night's Plutonian shore. 

— Poe. 
Tell me not in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream. 

— Longfellow. 

iambic, 

And wrought within his shattered brain such quick poetic senses. 

— Mrs. Browning. 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 27 

dactylic — does it exist? 
anapaestic — with added syllable. 

That are little of might, that are moulded of mire, unenduring 
and shadow-like nations. — Swinburne. 

But this again seems to be a variation of the cho- 
riambic verse, rather than an anapseestic movement. 
Its scheme would seem to be 

The heptameter movement is too long to exist, 
except as composed of shorter metres. (See Com- 
mon Metre under Stanza). 

8. Octameter. — This, like the heptameter, if it can 
be said to exist at all, does so by virtue of the asso- 
ciation of two tetrameters into a line, which, by rime, 
is co-ordinated with another similarly constructed 
verse-line. 

It is well to say here that the forms given above are 
to be recognized merely as types to which poems, in 
their mechanical structure, more or less nearly conform, 
but there is not in English, however it may be in the 
classic languages, any scheme or schemes into which 
all lines of any poem must be forced. That a line can 
not be scanned according to any fixed scheme, nay, 
that lines in the same poem, which is apparently homo- 
geneous, do not follow the same scheme, argues noth- 
ing against the metrical correctness or artistic beauty 
of the poem. On the contrary, the irregularity may 
itself be a means to enhance this beauty. Rhythm, 
depending upon quantity, is to be recognized by the 
marvellous and ready co-ordinations of the delicate 
human ear, and not by finger tests, or syllable counting, 
or the enumeration of accents. The unhappy divorce 



28 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

of music and poetry lias tended to free music and 
hamper poetry; when they find each other again, 
music will suffer the mild enslavery of melody and 
harmony, while poetry will be freed from the shackles 
of a fixed and inflexible form. 



HISTORY OF SOME IMPORTANT RHYTHMS. 

In general, in music the bar begins with an accented 
note and the rhythmic movement is descending, and 
this form in English poetry is now also of frequent 
use, both in trochaic and dactylic rhythms; but the 
rising rhythm, that is, the rhythm in which no stress is 
used until a sound or a set of sounds has been uttered, 
seems to be more frequent and, perhaps, more natural. 
However, this last statement is made under correction, 
for in prose writing characterized by emphasis of state- 
ment, sentences very frequently, r^erhaps most fre- 
quently, begin with an accented syllable. This may 
itself be indicative of vigor and a ready attack, while 
the descending may, perchance, suggest either more 
deliberation, or a lighter and more gradual approach 
to the theme. So, in the fall or cadence of such lines, 
the ascending rhythms suggest periodic structure — at 
least lead up to an emphatic syllable, and often a logi- 
cal accent on the very last syllable, while the descend- 
ing rhythm is unemphatic in its termination and, in 
part, inclined to gradual fall in the sense. This is not 
uniform, however, and admits of no dogmatic declara- 
tion. It rather invites careful and sympathetic inves- 
tigation. 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 29 

In the earliest English poetry the essential of verse 
is Alliteration, and not the " regular recurrence of ac- 
cented syllables" (see Author's Edition of Elene, p. 8). 
The verse was in its structure stichic and the long-verse 
consisted of two heinistichs. In each hemistich there 
were two accented syllables, the unaccented syllables 
being variable in number, but constituting in all, prob- 
ably, when grouped, two bars of equal time intervals. 
This Old English rhythm seems to be chiefly descend- 
ing. 

wintra for worulde th?es the wealdend god 

Ssegdon sigerofum, swa fram Siluestre, &c. 

These examples indicate too that the heinistichs are 
united to each other by alliteration, according to which 
at least one accented syllable of the first hemstich must 
be used in alliteration with at least one of the accented 
syllables of the second hemistich. 

That rime frequently occurred in Old English verse 
is beyond question. Sometimes it seemed to exist 
merely by chance and at other times obviously with 
design. In the latter case it seems to have been used 
for ornamentation. In due time rime was so regularly 
and uniformly used, that it became the essential ele- 
ment of verse, and alliteration, if used at all, of a pur- 
pose, came to be merely ornamental. Rime was for a 
long time counted the condition without which verse 
could have no existence. But, in the course of time, 
this, too, was counted rather the accident than the es- 
sence of verse, and blank verse was recognized as the 
highest form of poetry and rime joined alliteration in 
its service of verse-beautifying. 

But to revert to Old English verse. 



30 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

Rime, which is present in the oldest poems, became 
more usual and in the tenth century the "Riming 
Poem," perhaps of Norse origin or imitation, gives evi- 
dence of familiarity with this element of verse-structure. 
No doubt, too, riming was influenced both by Latin 
hymns and the imported lyric measures of the Trouba- 
dours, and it is in hymnic or lyric poetry that rime is still 
most important as a means of facilitating stanzaic 
structure (see below). 

In Layamon's poetry, about 1200, there occur both 
rime and alliteration, sometimes one, sometimes both, 
very rarely neither. The rhythm is the sectional or 
stichic rhythm divided into two short lines or hemi- 
stichs of equal length. 

1. The Septenary. 

The Ormulum of about the same time, 1200, shows 
the influence of the Latin Septenary. 

The Latin Septenarius was a verse of seven feet, 
heptapody, with last foot catalectic, or, in classic term- 
nology, a catalectic tetrameter. The movements vacil- 
lated between Iambic and Trochaic. It found its first 
imitation in the Poema Morale, of, perhaps, the same 
date as the Ormulum (ten Brink). This runs as follows : 

Ic am elder thamne ic wes, a wintre and ec a lore 

Ic ealdi more, thamne ic dede; mi wit oghte to bi more. 

This is the rimed couplet of the Latin form. The 
Ormulum differs from it in hems; rimeless. 

Thatt uss iss swithe mikell ned to follghenn annd to trowwenn. 

For further use of this Septenarius, see Ileptameter, 
above. 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 31 

About the time of the introduction of the Latin 
Septenarius, two measures from the French found 
their way into English poetry : The Short-Rimed Coup- 
let and the Alexandrine. 

2. The Short-Rimed Couplet. 

This form is merely a development of the natural te- 
trameter movement (see above), and is marked merely 
by the fact that the verse-lines are bound together 
in couplets by end rime. Perhaps the first occurrence 
of this form in English poetry is in a poetical para- 
phrase of The Lord's Prayer, which belongs to the 
middle of the 12th century. This Short-Riming Coup- 
let, which became so popular before Chaucer's day, was 
adopted by him as one of his most used forms for 
narrative poetry. It is iambic in movement and, while 
it may be handled with great accuracy, is frequently 
subject to slurring, elision, added syllable, etc. For 
continuation of the use of this four-stressed verse see 
above. 

3. The Alexandrine. 

Another French form, which seems to have found 
its way into English, first in conjunction with the old 
alliterative line, and with the tretrameter movement, 
and later in its purer French form, is the Alexandrine, 
a six-foot verse of iambic movement. This was first 
used in connection with the Septenary (cf . Chronicle of 
Robert of Gloucester in 1300), but used also about the 
beginning of the Fourteenth Century (cf. Robert 
Mannyng's Rimed Chronicle) as a verse of six accents, 
broken after the third by the cgesural pause. In this 



32 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

form, of course, it might occur as a quatrain (see be- 
low) of three-measure verse. In conjunction with 
the Septenary it was known as Poulter's Measure. (See 
below). 

4. Heroic Verse. 

The origin of this five-stressed iambic movement, as 
used in English, is not clear. It may be (1) either an 
accidental or intended shortening of the Alexandrine. 
Evidence is not lacking that a shortened line was so used 
in association with the full Alexandrine ; (2) it may be 
a lengthening of the ordinary four-stressed verse, and 
this, too, is supported by the fact that in four-accented 
verse occasionally lines occur that show five bars ; (3) 
it is probable that it is a direct imitation of the favorite 
ten-syllable French verse. 

The French ten-syllable verse, which, by the way, 
might have more syllables, was almost always divided 
by a caesura, after the fourth syllable, which usually 
bore a strong ictus. In English this five-tact verse oc- 
curs first in two songs (Ms. Harl. 2253) belonging to 
the early part of the Fourteenth Century. In these 
hymns it occurs in connection with lines of other 
measures. 

The Heroic Couplet — that is the five-accented iam- 
bic verse, united in couplets by end rime — owes its 
English origin to Chaucer, who used it for the first 
time in his Legende of Good Women. Skeat thinks 
this was modelled upon a poem by Guillaume de 
Machault (fl377). At any rate, Chaucer soon gained 
such freedom in using it, showing such skill in varying 
the caesura, reducing or enlarging the number of syl- 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 33 

lables, etc., that the verse was established as the most 
beloved of early English measure. Surrey (1518-1547) 
first made in it an important change, looking to further 
freedom from artificial trammels — this was to omit the 
rimes. Perhaps this was occasioned by Surrey's ac- 
quaintance with the Italian versi sciolti. It is to his 
translation of The ^Eneid that we owe the very popu- 
lar blank verse. 

5. Blank Yerse. 

This variation of the rimed, heroic couplet, was ad- 
opted and expanded by the Old Dramatists, used with 
unsurpassed skill by ShakesjDeare, adopted by Milton 
for his famous Epics, and after a conflict with the heroic 
couplet in Dryden's time was reinstated in dramatic 
literature. It has been more widely used than any 
other verse-form perhaps, and is still a favorite measure 
with our poets. Cf. Tennyson, Browning, Poe, Hunt, 
Keats, Shelley, &c, &c, &c. 

6. Tetrameter Yerse. 

Some notice is necessary here of one of the most 
beloved of all English measures. (See above). This 
verse-form so popular in the old ballads, the morality 
plays, and narrative verse in general, has its source in 
the four-accent long alliterative line of the Old English 
period. It is, in essence, a Teutonic verse-form, and may 
be called our national measure. 

This alliterating long-line is identical with the so- 
called Tumbling Yerse, and this Gascoigne identifies 
with the Moral Plays. It is the verse frequently used 
in the Sixteenth Century, by Wyatt, Spenser, Shakes- 



34 



INTRODUCTORY NOTES 



peare and others, and later by Scott, Byron, &c. It is 
used, of course, most frequently in strophic or stanzaic 
structure. (See below). 

7. Trochaic Metres. 

Descending rhythm was unknown in Old English 
and is of uncertain origin. When and by whom the 
first trochaic poem was written is unknown, but tro- 
chaic verses were cited by Puttenham in 1589 and are 
of frequent use in the Lyrics of the Dramatists. Per- 
haps the trochaic movement is the natural outgrowth 
of the iambic movement with anacrusis, and the form 
once established would soon develop into analogues for 
all ascending measures. 

8. Dactylic Hexameter. 

The epic verse of classic metres early aroused by its 
great popularity a desire for imitation in other metres, 
where the stress or accent played a more important 
part. If these attempts are to be valued by their ap- 
proach to classic standards, that is merely as imitations, 
their success is very meagre, but if they be considered 
as English variations of Greek and Latin forms they 
have merited both recognition and praise. 

Schipper (Englische Metrik) following Elze, indicates 
its history. 

In classic metre the hexameter was a six-foot cata- 
lectic verse, consisting generally of h've dactyls and a 
trochee, or a shortened dactyl, but a spondee might 
occur in any foot except the fifth, and sometimes even 
in the fifth, and then it was known as a spondaic line. 

The rhythm was distinctly a 4-rhythni, and in Eng- 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 35 

lish is to be distinguished from the Logaoedic dactylic 
movement of 3-time. But this distinction has rarely 
been noted and in general any foot of three syllables 
with accent on first, repeated six times, has been called 
a dactylic hexameter, and this verse, too, has, of course, 
admitted various substitutions. 

The hexameter was the first classic metre imitated. 
This was by Gabriel Harvey (1545 \ — 1630), e. g. : 

Needes to thy bow will I bow this knee, and vayle my bonnetto. 
This attempt of Harvey's was also made by his friends 
Spenser and Sidney, and others. Stanyhurst attempted 
a quantitative translation of Vergil, and Webbe used 
it' for the Georgics and Eclogues. 

Only in beechen groves and dolesome shadowy places. 
But here and elsewhere, though this is formally dac- 
tylic verse, it has little, if any, of the original rhythm. 
Greene's experiments were somewhat more success- 
ful, but still left much to be desired. 
When bonny maids do meet with the swains in the valley by Tempe. 

During this Century this metre has been essayed 
by Coleridge, Southey and others, particularly in transla- 
tions from the German and of Homer. Later Clough, 
Kingsley, Longfellow, Bret Harte, as well as Cayley, 
Spedding and others have used it. The former with 
freedom and variation, the latter with an unsuccessful 
effort to conform to the quantities of classic metres. 

Lanier indicates that the four-rhythm can be repro- 
duced (though he gives no examples for the hexameter), 
e.g.: 

It's we two, it's we two, it's we two for aye, 

All the world and we two, and Heaven be our stay. 

— Jean Ingelow. 



.-) 



6 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 



But he utters a needed caution against the predomi- 
nance of the four-syllable type, which, when frequently 
repeated, is comic in its effect. 

9. The Elegiac. 

This is a dactylic hexameter, followed by a so-called 
dactylic pentameter. This pentameter consists of two 
sections, of two and a half feet each. This was first 
used in English by Sidney, and best exemplified by 
Coleridge, in translation of Schiller's Distichon, e. g. 

In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column, 
In the pentameter aye || falling in melody back. 

And parodied by Tennyson (On Translations of Homer): 

These lame hexameters the strong-winded music of Homer ! 
No — but a most burlesque, barbarous experiment. 

But also prettily varied by Tennyson : 

Creeping through blossoming rushes and bowers of rose blowing 

bushes, 
Down by the poplar tall rivulets babble and fall, 

10. Hendecasyllabic. 

This consists of a spondee, a dactyl and three 
trochees : 

Coleridge substitutes dactyl in first place : 

Hear, my beloved, an ,old Milesian story. 

But Tennyson reproduces it more nearly in, 

All composed in a meter of Catullus. 
And Swinburne in, 

In the month of the long decline of roses. 

Variations of this meter may be found in Lamb, 
Browning, Matthew Arnold, etc. 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 37 

11. CHORIAMBIC. 

This is used with beautiful effect by Swinburne ; for 
example : 

Love, what ailed thee, to leave a life that was made lovely, we 
thought, with love ? 

Other less important verse forms, such as the Galli- 

ambic, ^Esclepiadean, &c., are omitted and imitations 

of classic stanzas will be noted below. 

The Stanza. 

We have seen above that the bars, or units of metre, 
are grouped together into lines, or verses of given length, 
and that these lines generally correspond to the rhyth- 
mical phrase, or sentence, or colon. This correspond- 
ence is shown by the pause in the recitation falling at 
the end of the line and being coincident with a breath- 
ing place or an actual pause in the sense. 

A higher form of rhythm is the grouping of these 
rhythmical phrases, or sentences, into periods. 

Let us analyze an ordinary stanza or verse (note this 
usual use of the word) in preparation for a fuller out- 
line for the study of the stanza : 

I steal by lawns and grassy plots, 

I slide by hazel covers ; 
I move the sweet forget-me-nots 

That grow for happy lovers. 

The scheme may be written as follows : 

The movement is iambic, 
tetrameter, acatalectic in the 
first line, catalectic in the 
second and then these two re- 
peated. Further the rime order is ah ah. 



38 



INTRODUCTORY NOTES 



The stanza divides itself, then, into two distinct parts. 
If read aloud it is obvious that the first line is a rhyth- 
mical phrase and likewise the second ; that the pause 
between them is in no wise so important as that after 
the second line; that the first and second lines belong 
together. In versification this union of phrases, or 
rhythmical sentences, is called a period, and the period 
here consists of two phrases, called respectively the an- 
tecedent and consequent. The next lines constitute a 
similar period. The stanza here, then, consists of two 
periods of two rhythmical phrases each. As it is made 
up of four lines, it is called a quatrain, and it is further 
characterized by alternate, or cross-rime. 

Stanza. 



1st Period. / Antecedent Phrase. 
\ Consequent. 

2d Period. ^ Antecedent. 
\ Consequent. 



I steal by lawns and grassy plots, a 
I slide by hazel covers ; b 

I move the sweet forget-me-nots a 
That grow for happy lovers, b 



The simplest grouping of rhythmical sentences is 
where two are united in a period, and the period con- 
stitutes a stanza. For a long time the word stanza 
was limited to combinations of four or more lines, but 
the union of two, or three, lines into verses had not 
then occurred. Now there seems to be nothing gained 
by denying this generic name to couplets and triplets. 
It is true that these specific names are more significant, 
but so is the name quatrain, sestina, etc., etc. 

2. 

The group of two rhythmical sentences of equal 
length into a period, which constitutes a stanza, may be 
called the stichic period. It is, of course, a couplet: 

Annie of Tliaraw, my true love of old, 



She is my wife, and my goods, and my gold. 



■Longfellow. 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 30 

Formerly used very seldom, it is of frequent use 
and in various movements in the Nineteenth Century 
poets. Cf. Herbert's Charms and Knots. Cf. Long- 
fellow's The Belfry of Bruges ; Nuremberg ; Day- 
break ; Tennyson's Locksley Hall ; Swinburne, After 
Death; Browning, The Boy and the Angel ; Rossetti, 
The White Ship; Mrs. Browning, A Court Lady ; 
Lord Walter's Wife, etc. 

These are united by rime. 

An interesting example is Longfellow's Bells of 
Lynn, in which the end of the stanza is marked by the 
refrain, "O, Bell of Lynn." 

It would, perhaps, be straining a point to call either 
the short-rimed couplet or the heroic couplet a stanzaic 
structure, for these rhythmical phrases are not, as a 
rule, united into regular periods of two phrases each. 

The Poulter's Measure, on the other hand, consisting 
of the Alexandrine, twelve syllables, and the Sep- 
tenary, thirteen syllables, joined by end rime, does 
usually partake of the stanzaic character (see four- 
line stanza), e. g. : 

So feeble is the thread that doth the burden stay 

Of my poor life ; in heavy plight, that falleth in decay. — Wyatt. 

But even here the stanza is not well denned, and in 
occasional examples of enjambement it disappears en- 
tirely; for example, in the same poem by Wyatt 
(Complaint of the Absence of his Love) : 

And yet with more delight to moan my woful case, 

I must complain these hands, these arms that firmly do embrace 

Me from myself, and rule the term of my poor life. 

In this case we can not speak of a two-line stanza, 
but merely of the two lines as being united by rime. 



40 



INTRODUCTORY NOTES 



These rime-unions are found frequently in lines of un- 
equal length, e. g., a line of five bars and a line of 
three, a line of five bars and a line of two, etc. 
These variations present no serious difficulty. 

3. 

Where, instead of two isometric lines united by 
rime or otherwise into a stanza, we have three phrases 
thus joined, we have what may be called the repeated 
stichic period. This is generally spoken of as a triplet. 
It was used as early as Ben Johnson, e. g. : 

Though you sometimes proclaim me too severe, 

Rigid and harsh, which is a drug austere 

In friendship, I confess, yet, dear friend, hear. 

An elegy written by Charles, preserved by Burrel 
and quoted in part by Guest {English Rhythms), gives 
a further example : 

Nature and law, by thy divine decree, 
(The only root of righteous royaltie) 
With this dim diadem invested me. 

A modern example is Longfellow's : 

Maiden with the meek, brown eyes, 
In whose orbs a shadow lies 
Like the dust in evening skies ! 

For further examples, with variations, compare, Can- 
ning, The Anti jacobin ; Drayton, The Heart ; Den- 
ham; Swinburne, Cradle Songs / Thackeray, Requies- 
cat j Carew, A Looking Glass. Cf. Herbert, Swift, 
Lamb, Mrs. Browning, Tennyson, Cowper, Leigli 
Hunt, Wordsworth, Browning, Bossetti, Swinburne. 

Further examples of this three-line stanza may be 
found, in which the lines are of unequal length : 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 41 

Who ere she be, 

That not impossible she 

That shall command my heart and me. — Crashaw. 



2, 3, 4. 



With much of pain, and all the art I knew, 

Have I endeavoured hitherto 

To hide my love, and yet all will not do. 
5, 4, 5. 

Of. also, Carew, Granville, etc. 

3 a - 

A variation of the three-line stanza of single rime, 
as in the examples cited, is the three-line stanza, in 
which the third line is a refrain without rime and not 
of equal metre. For example, Thomas Moore sang : 

Ah ! where are they who heard, in former hours, 
The voice of song in these neglected bowers ? 
They are gone — all gone. 

Compare with this the artistic stanza used by Wyatt, 
To his Beloved : 

Forget not yet the tried intent 
Of such a truth as I have meant ; 
My great travail so gladly spent, 
Forget not yet! 

Here the refrain, borrowed from the first line, follows 
the third. 

Compare Wyatt, Therefore, Take Heed • In exter- 
num, etc.; Cowper, My Mary • Burns, The Gal- 
lant Weaver / Herbert, Swift, etc. 

4. 

The most usual stanza in English is the four-line 
stanza, and this exhibits so many varieties that only a 
few of the most important can be noted, and from 
these types the student may observe variations. It will 



42 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

readily be seen that these variations may be multiplied 
almost at will. 

1. One of the simplest stanzas of four lines is the re- 
peated stichic period, which occurs when four ryth- 
mical sentences of equal length rime with each other. 
This simple Strophe (a a a a) was well known in 
Mediaeval Latin and early entered English poetry. 
For an example, note Donne's Epigram on the 
Sacrament. : 

He was the Word that spake it ; 
He took the bread and brake it, 
And what that Word did make it 
I do believe and take it. 

For further examples see : 

Leigh Hunt's The Jovial Priest's Confession — a re- 
production in metre of the Septenarius. Mihi est 
propositum in taberna mori. Wyatt's The Recurecl 
Lover ; Denham, Burns. 

2. Another simple form is the stanza composed of two 
rimed couplets. Here there are 2 periods of 2 equal 
phrases, aahb. 

This is a very common stanza in Iambic, Trochaic, 
Anapaestic and Dactylic movements. For examples 
see Marlowe, Carew, Waller, Dryden, Cowper, 
Shenstone, Wordsworth, Llood, Hunt, Longfellow, 
Moore, Shelley, &c, &c. 

3. A third kind of 4-line stanza is that in which the 
third line does not rime with the first 

This is a stanza of 4-lines alternately isometric 
with rime order a h c b . This may be written as a 
rime couplet of long lines. 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 43 

Kg.: 

Gentle river, gentle river, 

Lo thy streams are stained with gore, 

Many a brave and noble captain 
Floats along thy willow' d shore. 

— Percy's Keliques. 

For other examples see : 

Tennyson — Edward Gray / Browning — May and 
Death (note here internal rime), Longfellow, &c, &c. 

More frequent is the stanzaic form, in which a 
"group" is repeated in the same order — this gives 
rise to the palinodic period, in which the stanza is 
marked by cross-rime ah ah. The rime is usually (a) 
masculine, but occasionally (b) masculine and femi- 
nine rime are combined. 

Note, (a). 

She had a rustic woodland air, 

And she was wildly clad 

Her eyes were fair, and very fair — 

Her beauty made me glad. 

— Wordsworth. 

(b) Forget not the field where they perished 
The truest, the last of the brave ; 
All gone — and the bright hope we cherished 
Gone with them, and quenched in their grave. 

— Moore. 

This stanza is subject to variations in the lengths 
of the lines, &c, and is so frequently used as to re- 
quire no references. 

Cf. The Elegiac Stanza. 

The antithetic period is an interesting form. Here 
the stanza has the rime order ahha. In the Italian 



44 



INTRODUCTORY NOTES 



Sonnet (see below) tins is the favorite form of the 
Quatrain. 

"While not so frequent in English it has been made 
popular by Tennyson's In Memoriam. It may be 
found too in Sidney, Jonson, Milton, Coleridge, 
Burns, Rosetti, &c. 

6. Some variations of the 4-line stanza of one rime 

are : (a). Three isometric riming lines followed by 

a fourth line which rimes with the fourth of the 

second, third and fourth stanza, &c. 

Cf. Campbell, Ilohenlinden / Swinburne, Her- 
bert Dorset, &c. 

(b). First, second and fourth line rime, while the 
third line without rime forms either a refrain, or not. 
Cf. Sidney, Tennyson, Longfellow, &c. 

Some of the principal four-line stanzas have thus 
been noted. It will be well to mention further that : 

Common Metre consists of Iambic tetrameter and 
trimeter. It is, of course, the Septenary uniformly 
broken. 

Long Metre is the Iambic Tetrameter. 

Short Metre — Iambic Trimeter with Tetrameter 
in third line. Other designations, such as eights and 
sevens, sevens, tens, &c, refer to number of sylla- 
bles in peculiar verse forms. 

5. 
Stanza of Five Lines. 
1. A simple variation of the antithetic 4-line stanza 
(supra 5) leads to a five-line stanza. This variation 
consists in adding a fifth line riming with the fourth, 
changing the rime from abba to abb a a. 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 45 

For examples : Sidney, Psalm XX VIII • Mrs. 
Browning, Died, &c. 

2. The three-line stanza of one rime is sometimes used 
as the from, or fronts, followed by a cauda, or tail- 
rime of two lines with different rime. Here the 
caucla is usually shorter than the frons. a a abb. 

Me list no more to sing 
Of love, nor of such thing- 
How sore that it me wring ; 
For that I sung or spake, 
Then did my songs mistake. — Wyatt. 

A variation of this is where the first lines rime 
and then the following three aabbb. 

Cf. Denham, Moore, Shelley, Rosetti, Longfel- 
low, &c. 

3. A more important variation of this latter form, if 
its origin be in variation, is the stanza composed thus 
aabab. The origin of this maybe the shortening 
of the six-line stanza. (See below). 

It is used by Wyatt, Drayton, Swinburne, Mrs, 
Browning, &c. 

4. The rime-order a abb a, is occasionally found, for ex- 
ample, in Mrs. Browning, Wordsworth, Moore, &c. 

Kg.: 

How joyously the young sea-men 

Lay dreaming on the waters blue 

Whereon our little bark had thrown 

A little shade, the only one, 

But shadows ever man pursue. 

— Mrs. Browning. 

5. The rime-order abaab also occurs, and in modern 
times quite frequently. 



46 



INTRODUCTORY NOTES 



Cf. Herbert, Sidney, Moore, Thackeray, Long- 
fellow. 

A variation of this form, used by Longfellow and 
by Wordsworth, for example in Peter Bell is a stanza 
in which the first line does not rime ; instead of the 
formula abaab, we have abccb, and in Browning, 
Dls aliter visum, abcca. 

6. A very frequent form of the 5-line stanza and 
with lines of various lengths follows the rime-order 
ababb. This seems to be merely an extension of 
the palinodic period (see 4 above) by the addition of 
a fifth line riming with the fourth. 

The autumn is old, 

The sere leaves are flying ; 

He hath gathered up gold, 
And now he is dying ; 
Old age begin sighing. — Hood. 

See Waller, Swinburne, Browning, Moore, Burns, 
Hood, Landon, Coleridge, &c. 

7. Sometimes the fifth added line rimes with the first 
and third, and not with the second and fourth as 
above. 

This form is used by Browning, Mrs. Browning, 

&c. 

Attention should be called, too, to the fact that 
stanzas are often concatenated by repeating in one 
stanza the rime of a former, &c. Examples of this 
are not hard to find. 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 



47 



6. 
Stanza of Six Lines. 

1. It hardly seems necessary to name each of the stan- 
zas that may be found of this form. They present, 
usually, extensions of the five-line stanza. Some of 
the forms are : 

(a) a a abb b, where the last two form a refrain. 

(b) aababb. See above five-line stanza. 

(c) abcbac. Herbert, An Offering. 

(d) abcbca. Tennyson, A Character. 

(e) abaeba. Browning, The Worst of It, &c.,&c. 

(f) aaaabc. That is a one-rime quatrain followed 

by a rimeless couplet. 

2. More interesting specimens of the six-line stanza are 
found in the stanza consisting of three periods of 
isometric phrases. Of these the most usual are : 

(a) The form aabbcc, used by so many poets. Cf . 
Cowper, S. Johnson, Byron, Coleridge, Thomson, 
Sheii stone, Scott, Browning, Burns, Thackeray, 
&c. 

(b) The form in which three cross-rime couplets fol- 
low each other — a babab. Examples of this 
are easy to find. See Byron — 

She walks a beauty, &c. 

A variation of this form is found in Milton's meta- 
phrase of the Seventh Psalm : 

Lord, my God, to thee I fly ; 
Save me, and secure me under 
Thy protection, while I cry ; 
Lest, as a lion (and no wonder), 
He haste to tear my soul asunder, 
Tearing and no rescue nigh. 



48 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

Cf. Mrs. Browning, The Sword of Castruccio Cas- 
tracani. See, also, Drayton's Love's Conquest. 

3. One of the most used forms is the cross-rime quatrain 
followed by a rime-couplet, ababec, in which the 
rime-couplet is often a refrain. It is not necessary 
to give an example of a form so common. For ex- 
amples, note Shelley, Tennyson, Wordsworth, Moore, 
Mrs. Hemans, Shakespeare ( Venus and Adonis), 
Pope, Coleridge, Southey, Hood, Willis, &c, &c. 

7. 
Seven-Line Stanza. 

Of this, by far the most interesting form, is the 
Rhyme Royal. This name has been most frequently 
explained as a tribute to James I. of Scotland, who made 
use of it in his King's Quhair, but, as this stanza was 
used before this date, it probably owes its name to its 
French prototype, the chant-royal, or, as Gascoigne 
names it, the rhythme-royal. 

Its construction is as follows : It is an Iambic Penta- 
meter verse, with rime-order ababbcc. Ben Jon- 
son, On the King's Birthday, used the caudate rime- 
couplet as a refrain, but this is not usual. Because of 
its frequent use by Chaucer, it is sometimes called the 
short Chaucerian Stanza. For examples of it, see 
Shakespeare's Lucrece / Sackville, The Mirror for 
Magistrates • Spenser's Ruines of Time, &c. See, 
also, Chatterton, Wordsworth, &cl 

Variations of it may be found in Akenside, Mrs. 
Browning, &c. 

There are other variations of the seven-line stanza, 
but they present no difficulties. 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 49 

8. 

Eight-Line Stanza. 

As it is not intended to discuss in full the complicated 
Strophes, which occur in English poetry, only two of 
the many variations of eight-line stanzas will be men- 
tioned here : 

1. Ottava Rima. — This mifflit be discussed under the 
foreign forms given below, for it is of Italian origin, 
but it has been in such use since "Wyatt and Surrey 
as to be now a thoroughly anglicized form. It con- 
sists of four periods of two phrases each. The ante- 
cedents of the first three rime, and so do the conse- 
quents, while the antecedent and consequent of the 
fourth period rime. The rime-order, then, isabab- 
abcc. A good example of it is the Epilogue to 
Milton's Lycidas : 

Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, 

While the still morn went out with sandals gray : 
He touched the tender stops of various quills 
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay: 
And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, 
And now was dropt into the western bay. 

At last he rose and twitched his mantle blue : 
Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new. 

Examples of the Ottava Rima are numerous. 
Byron was particularly fond of it. See Don Juan, 
Bejppo, etc. See, also, Keats, Hunt, Willis, Long- 
fellow, etc. 

2. A favorite stanza, used qrequently by Chaucer, 
may have had its origin in a conscious readjustment 
of the rime-scheme of the Ottava Rima. The form 
here is ababbcbo. That is, two quatrains bound 



50 



INTRODUCTORY NOTES 



together bv the last rime of the first and the first of 
the latter. 

9. 

The Nine-Line Stanza — The Spenserian. 

The origin of Spenser's Stanza was, probably, in the 
simple addition of a riming Alexandrine to the stan- 
zaic form just given. Note an example from Spenser's 

Fairie Queen : 

One day, nigh wearie of the yrksome way, 

From her unhastie beast she did alight ; 
And on the grasse her dainty limbs did lay 

In secret shadow, far from all men's sight ; 
From her fayre head her fillet she undight, 

And layd her stole aside : Her angel's face, 
As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright, 

And make a sunshine in the shady place ; 
Did ever mortal eye behold such heavenly grace ? 

The Spenserian Stanza has been used very widely 
in English poetry, and, except during the classical 
period, has been a great favorite. 

Thomson's Castle of Indolence / Shelley's The Re- 
volt of Islam, and Adonais ; Keat's Eve of St. Ag- 
nes', Byron's Childe Harold / Tennyson's lotus-Eaters 
(first stanzas), are some of the famous poems in which 
it has been used. For further examples, see Shenstone, 
Burns, Scott, Campbell, Hood, Hunt, etc., etc. 

10. 
The Ten-Line Stanza. 
This usually consists of some combination of other 
and simpler stanzaic forms, which are frequently 
united by refrains. 

There are stanzas, of course, of eleven, twelve, thir- 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 51 

teen, and fourteen lines, as well as more complicated 
atrophic forms. It is not the purpose of these intro- 
ductory notes to enter into any discussion of these 
complex combinations, which can best be studied by 
careful and minute analysis of given specimens. 



IMITATIONS. 

I. 

Of Classical Stanzas. 

1. The Alcaic — 

The Latin form is, when perfectly regular 



Compare with this Tennyson's Ode on Milton: 

O mighty mouth'd inventor of harmonies, 
O skilled to sing of Time or Eternity, 
Godgifted organ voice of England, 
Milton, a name to resound for ages. 

Notice also the same poet's poem, To the Red. F. 
D. Maurice. 

Come, Maurice, come ; the lawn as yet 

Is hoar with rime or spongy wet ; 

Or when the wreath of March has blossomed, 

Crocus, anemone, violet, 

&c, &c. 

Cf. Also The Daisy. 
2. The Sapphic. 



52 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

This form has been reproduced frequently. First 
by Sidney in the Arcadia. The following is an ex- 
ample from Dr. Watts' The Day of Judgment : 

How the poor sailors stand arnaz'd and tremble ! 
While the hoarse thunder, like a bloody trumpet, 
Koars a loud onset to the gaping waters 

Quick to devour them. 

Compare Cowper, Southey, and note particularly the 
following examples from Swinburne: 

All the night sleep came not upon my eyelids, 
Shed not dew nor shook nor unclosed a feather, 
Yet with lips shut close and with eyes of iron 
Stood and beheld me. 

II. 

The Sonnet. 

a. 

The Italian Sonnet. 

It is unnecessary to enter here into the Italian origin 
of the sonnet, or little song. It is sufficient to say that 
as used by Petrarch, Dante, Tasso, Ariosto and others 
it was a fixed form of fourteen lines divided into an 
octave and a sestet. The rime order of the octave was 
always the same but the sestets varied. 

( edeede I Type ) 
\ cdcded II '" V 
( cdedce III " ) 

There were other variations than these in this Italian 
sestet. 

As a rule the sonnet consisted then of two quatrains, 
followed by two tercets. 

The sonnet was introduced into English by Wyatt 
and Surrey, though not in its strict form. The Italian 



Octave abbaabba < cdcded II " > Sestet. 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 53 

types are all illustrated in English — Type I. abba abba 
cdecde is used by Milton; Wordsworth, To 7?. B. 
Hay don ; Longfellow — Prefixed to Dante's Divina 
Com media, &c, &c. 

Type II. abbaabbacdcdcd. Here, too, examples 
may be found in Milton, Wordsworth, Longfellow, &c. 

Type III. abba abba, ode dee. Cf. Milton, The 
Age of 23. Theodore Watts' beautiful sonnet may 
serve at once as a description and an example of this 
form : 

THE SONNET'S VOICE. 

Yon silvery billows breaking on the beach 
Fall back in foam beneath the star-shine clear, 
The while my rhymes are murmuring in your ear 
A restless lore like that the billows teach ; 
For on these sonnet-waves my soul would reach 
From its own depths, and rest within you, dear, 
As, through the billowy voices yearning here 
Great nature strives to find a human speech. 
A sonnet is a wave of melody ; 
From heaving waters of the impassioned soul 
A billow of tidal music, one and whole, 
Flows in the " octave ; " then returning free, 
Its ebbing surges in the '■ sestet" roll 
Back to the deeps of Life's tumultuous sea. 

This description indicates, too, that in the well-built 
sonnet the thought or sentiment rises in the octave 
(Aufgesang) and falls as it were in the sestet (Abgesang). 

B. 

Shakespeare's Sonnet. 

Illegitimate Sonnet. 

This sonnet shows so decided a variation from the 
fixed type, that some have wished to deny it the name. 



54 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

It consists of the regular five-accent verse, iambic 
movement, but it is made up of three quatrains, each 
quatrain with its own cross-rimes followed by a rime- 
couplet. The rime-order then is ahabcdcdefefgg. 

For examples, see Shakespeare. 

c. 

Modern Sonnet. 

Illegitimate Sonnet. 

Frequently the close connection between octave and 
sestet, which represent the flow and ebb of thought, 
the rise and fall of song, obtains, and all the conditions 
of the sonnet except the rime-order hold. These vari- 
ations give rise to the modern sonnet, illustrated by 
Milton, Keats, Wordworth, Hood, Byron, &c. 

It is questionable whether Mrs. Browning's Sonnets 
from the Portuguese should not be classed merely as 
fourteen-line stanzas rather than sonnets. It is true 
that the rime-order is regularly (abbaabbacdcdcd) 
of the Italian type, but it shows no other signs of or- 
ganic structure. 

8 in. 

Some Other Foreign Forms. 

1. The Terzina — of Italian origin — the Terza Rima of 
Dante's Divina Commedia. It consists of inter- 
laced stanzas of three lines each. The stanzas are 
interlaced thus, aba-bcb-cde, tfcc., and are usually 
made up of five-bar iambic verse, though other 
metres are also used. e. g. : 

O wild west wind, thou breath of Autnmn's being, 
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead 
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing. 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 55 

Yellow and black and pale and hectic red, &c. 

—Shelley, Ode to the West Wind. 

Surrey; Drummond; Daniel; Shelley, The Tri- 
umph of Life ; Leigh Hunt, From Dante; Byron, 
Prophecy of Dante, &c. ; Mrs. Browning, A Child's 
Thought of God / Browning, The Statue and the 
Dust, &c. 

Other forms of verse similarly interlaced may be 
found in Swinburne and elsewhere. 

2. The Sestina — of Provencal origin — consists of six 
stanzas of six pentameter lines each : each line of 
the first stanza ends in a different word, and these 
words are unrimed. But these same words are re- 
peated in each of the other stanzas. The rime- 
order, then, is: abedef -faebdc - cfdabe- 
ecbfad-deacfb-bdfeca. After the sixth 
stanza is a three-line stanza, in which these six re- 
peated words occur, three in the middle, three at 
the end of the lines. 

The sestina has been composed by Byrne, Charles 
W. Coleman, Jr., Gosse, Robinson, Scollard, Swin- 
burne (see Gleeson White's Dallades and Ron- 
deaus), &c. Swinburne's double sestina is a tour 
de force, 

3. The Sicilian Octaves consists of one stanza of eight 
lines with two rimes, abababab. 

Note its near approach to the Ottava Rim a and 
for examples note Richard Garnett. (See White). 

4. Chain Yerse. Compare with the Terzina, in which 
the verses are united to each other by a repetition of 



56 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

the rime of the second line of each preceding stanza, 
in the first line of each succeeding. 

In French this concatenation was produced by the 
repetition of a word in a different form. In English 
the Chain Terse presents two varieties. 

(a) Where the last word or words of a line form the 
first word or words of the next stanza : 

Nerve thy soul with doctrines noble, 

Noble in the walks of time, 
Time that leads to an eternal, 

An eternal life sublime, &c. — Byrom. 

(b) Where the last line of a stanza becomes the first 
line of the next stanza. Cf. also Byrom. 

5. The Kyrielle. This is a poem of four-line stanzas, 
four bars, in which the last line is the same for every 
stanza. 

For examples : Cf . Payne, Robinson, Scollard, 
&c. Note also hymnology. 

6. The Pantoum, of Malay origin, but introduced into 
English through the French. It consists of quatrains 
in which the 2nd and 4th lines of each stanza from 
the 1st and 3rd of each following stanza. In the 
last the 2nd and 4th are formed from the 1st and 
3rd of the first. 

The wind brings up the hawthorn's breath, 
The sweet airs ripple up the lake; 
My soul, my soul is sick to death, 
My heart, my heart is like to break. 

The sweet airs ripple up the lake 

I hear the thin woods fluttering; 

My heart, my heart is like to break; 

What part have I, alas! in spring? &c. — Payne. 



TO THE STUDY OF POETKY. 57 

Cf . Brander Matthews, En Route / Dobson, In 
Town • Scollard, In the Sultan's Garden, &c. 

7. The Triolet, consists of eight lines of unfixed num- 
ber of syllables. First line is repeated for fourth, 
and the first and second are repeated for seventh 
and eighth. Example : 

TO AN AUTUMN LEAF. 

Wee shallop of shimmering gold ! 

Slip down from your ways in the branches. 

Some fairy will loosen your hold — 

Wee shallop of shimmering gold, 

Spill dew on your bows and unfold 

Silk sails for the fairest of launches ! 

Wee shallop of shimmering gold, 

Slip down from your ways in the branches. 

— C. H. Luders. 

8. Yillanelle. The name is from villanns and the song 
is a peasant song ; that is adapted to a roundelay of 
the peasants. It occurred as early as Passeral (1534- 
1602) and its formation is artificial. The original 
model is as follows : It consists of five stanzas of 
three lines each, followed by a sixth of four lines. 
The refrain is peculiar. First line of first stanza is 
last line of second and fourth ; last line of first 
stanza is last line of the third and fifth. The first 
and last lines of £he first stanza are the last two 
lines of the last stanza. 

For examples, see Henley, Gosse, Dobson, Lang, 
Peck, Scollard, Edith M. Thomas, &c. 

9. The Yirelai. Number of stanzas unfixed. Lines in 
the stanza are multiples of three. The rime-order 
is aabaabaab / hoc bbc bbc, &c, to last stanza (say 



58 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

seventh) ggaggagga. Each rime appears twice, once 
in the couplets and once in the single lines. For 
example, see Payne's Spring Sadness. 

10. The Yirelai Nouveau. 

Two-rimes, order unfixed. First stanza, a couplet ; 
the second stanza (of any number of lines) ends 
with the first line of the couplet ; the third stanza 
with second line of the couplet, and so on alter- 
nately. The last stanza uses the couplet. 

First stanza — 

Good-bye to the town ! good-bye ! 
Hurrah for the sea and the sky. 

Second stanza has five lines, and ends with the 
second, just given. Third has nine and ends with 
first. Fourth has nine and ends with first. Fifth 
has fifteen and ends with second. Sixth has five 
and uses the first stanza. See Dobson. 

11. The Rondel — a French form, of fourteen lines ; no 
particular metre. First and second lines are used 
as seventh and eighth and as thirteenth and four- 
teenth. Two-rimes, but rime-order is variable. Ex- 
ample : 

Awake, awake, O gracious heart, 
There's some one knocking at the door ; 
The chilling breezes make him smart; 
His little feet are tired and sore. 

Arise and welcome him before 
Adown his cheeks the big tears start ; 
Awake, awake, O gracious heart, 
There's some one knocking at the door. 

'Tis Cupid, come with loving art 
To honor, worship, and implore ; 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 59 

And lest, unwelcome, he depart 
With all his wise, mysterious love, 
Awake, awake, O gracious heart, 
There's some one knocking at the door. 

— Frank Dempster Sherman. 

12. The Rondeau. 

This consists of thirteen lines of eight or ten syl- 
lables each. There are three stanzas respectively 
of five, three and five lines. The refrain for second 
and third stanzas is borrowed from first words of 
first stanza. Rime-order is aabba-aab-aabba. 
This is a frequent form, and examples are not diffi- 
cult to find. 

13. The Roundel— 

This is Swinburne's variation of the Rondeau. It 
consists of three stanzas of three lines each, with 
refrain after first and third stanzas. Length of line 
variable. 

14. The Rondeau Redouble. 

This is made up of six stanzas of four lines each. 
Each line of the first stanza is used in regular or- 
der for the last line of the second, third, fourth, 
and fifth stanzas, while the sixth has a refrain bor- 
rowed from the first words of the first stanza. There 
are only two rimes, abab, baba, abab, etc. Cf. 
Monkhouse, Payne, Tomson, etc. 

15. The Pindaric Ode consists of nine stanzas of iam- 
bic rhythm, of which the first, fourth and seventh 
are alike in construction ; ditto, the second, fifth 
and eighth ; ditto, the third, sixth and ninth. Cf. 
Gray, The Progress of Poesy. 



60 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

16. The Ballade — an old French form. It is compli- 
cated, and presents many difficulties in composition. 
It was used by Gower and Chaucer, and has been 
frequently used since. 

Its strict forms are three stanzas of eight lines 
each, followed by an envoi of four ; or three stan- 
zas of ten lines each, followed by an envoi of five. 
The rimes of first stanza must be repeated, and the 
envoi uses the rime of the latter half of the last 
stanza. No word may be used twice in rime. The 
last line of each stanza and the envoi must be the 
same. The rime order is ababbcbc, or ababbe- 
cdcd. For example, see Gleeson White's Bal- 
lades and Rondeaus. 

17. The Chant Royal. — This is a more difficult and 
complicated form of The Ballade. It consists of 
five stanzas of eleven lines each, and an envoi of 
five lines. The final line of each stanza and the 
envoi is the same. Only five-rimes are used, aba 
bccddede, with envoi ddede. Examples of this 
are furnished by Dobson, Gosse, Payne, etc. 



STYLE. 

Something has already been said of syllables and 
combination of syllables as sound elements in versifi- 
cation, but it is obvious that the form is by no means 
so important as the contents and meaning of the poem. 
That which should give form to the poem is the spirit, 
which is the essence of the poetry. The problem, 
then, that the poet must solve is not merely how to 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 61 

please the ear by musical notes, but how' to instruct, 
stir or delight the senses by the value, power or beauty 
of the thought, emotion or idea. Style should be an 
unresisting medium through which the writer should 
come in contact, as direct as possible, with the reader. 
Since the style must represent the man, must reflect 
his individuality and be the very shadow of his mind, 
it would be necessary to study each poet and determine 
for him the existing qualities of style. In this place 
a few points of general interest, universal or frequent 
application, may be noted by way, partly, of assistance, 
partly, of caution. 

Diction. 

Poetry is not prose, and the diction of the one is 
not the diction of the other. It is not fully true, then, 
as Wordsworth insistently holds, " that the language of 
every good poem must in no respect differ from that 
of good prose." On the other hand, Wordsworth's 
view that " the very language of men " should consti- 
tute the vocabulary of poetry, is much more nearly cor- 
rect than the theory held, if not formulated, by Pope 
and others, that the language of poetry should be 
separate and distinct from the language ordinarily 
used. It was the artificial poetry of the Eighteenth 
Century which, by its conventional, stereotyped words 
and phrases, its multiplied classicalisms, etc., led to the 
"gaudiness and inane phraseology" which Wordsworth 
so deplores in some of the modern writers. 

Diction in poetry, as in prose, must be determined 
by a three-fold adaptation, to the writer, to the subject- 
matter, to the audience. 



62 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

I. The diction should be sincere. lSo graver charge 
can be brought against a poet's language than that it is 
the mere conventional mouthing of his craft; that the 
words are mere counters, which have no real counter- 
part in his mind ; that they express no real thought, no 
genuine emotion, no peculiar vision, but are the cheap 
and tawdry expression of unreal and unfelt mental con- 
ditions. 

Conventional phrases, however significant they may 
have been when first used, must be scrupulously 
avoided, if there is no definite and sharply defined 
thought or experience to which they now answer. 
Stereotyped words or figures are cold and lifeless, and 
are hardly more than dead type. The poet must seek 
diligently and patiently for words through which to 
convey his own thoughts and emotions. His mother 
tongue must be dear to him and its purity sacred. 
From experience of life, from his wide reading, from 
profound studies, from his deep thinking, from his 
casual or purposed association with his fellow-man, 
from his communings with himself, he must learn 
words, words, words, that when he will write, there 
may be at his hand the means. Only by this diligence, 
coupled with native aptitude and an unlearned precision 
in selecting the inevitable word, will he reach high 
success here. In thus expressing himself, he attains, 
too, to that naturalness, whether apparently by happy 
fortune, or by the consummate artlessness of art, which 
forbids straining for effect, and the shams and show of 
meretricious ornamentation. 

II. But the poet in being sincere, that is in using his 
own vocabulary to express what he knows and feels 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 63 

and inwardly desires, must adapt his language to his 
theme. The subject-matter has been somewhat vaguely 
designated as "human interests," all that either re- 
motely or nearly concerns mankind. It may be some 
simple, e very-day thought craving poetic expression, or 
it may be some intricate, involved, complex conception 
of a profound, but puzzled prophet. It may be the 
calm, faint expression of a single, simple emotion, or 
the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling." 

It may be some idylic situation, beautiful in its sim- 
plicity ; some event, borrowing its charm from its 
naivete y some characters, as transparent as the limpid 
lake ; or it may be events, situations and characters all 
combined, as complex as intricate circumstances, shift- 
ing scenes and conflicting motives can make them. 

This faint suggestion of the diversity of themes sug- 
gests as well the diversity of diction. It may be, 

1. Simple, perspicuous, clear, with few, if any, quali- 
ties, not common to our everyday discourse, and re- 
lying for its effectiveness upon its fitness to the 
theme. 

2. Suggestive — indicating far more than the stripped 
words convey. The word may be "polarized," 
changed in its whole significance by the medium of 
joy or suffering, history or tradition, the deep expe- 
rience through which it has come. It may connote 
far more than it denotes, because of some associa- 
tions with which it is identified. These suggestive 
words, so hard to find, so effective when found, are 
the keys to thought ; the peep-holes to transcendent 
pictures ; the stepping-stones, like glittering parti- 



64 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

cles floating in the air, on which fleet-footed imagi- 
nation makes timeless journeys to spaceless distances. 

3. Full of vitality — varying from the sprightly vi- 
vaciousness of " trilling with grace " to the vis vivida 
of emotion, weighty with its own " high serious- 
ness " and vital purpose, and impelled by the con- 
centrated energy of a heart impetuous in its lired 
zeal. Energy is as much in place in language as in 
life, and finds its place in poetry as in prose. Elo- 
quence is not confined to oratory. The vehemence 
of sincere feeling may find its outlet in the torrent 
of strong words. The turbulence of minds ill at 
ease may picture itself in the onrush of thought, 
now tempestuous, now seething, now tumbling, now 
eddying. The currents in our life's atmosphere, as 
in our earth's, may be Berserkir winds or gentle 
zephyrs or aught between. 

4. Picturesque. The purpose of much poetry is to 
paint in words. This is no catalogue description, 
naming in order of time or place the elements of the 
event or scene. Here the imagination — the realizing 
faculty — by which man ejects himself into the 
life of past days, or projects himself into transac- 
tions and scenes around and before him, must be 
called into play. The reader must present to him- 
self as a vision what the poet so clearly sees. And 
the poet, by words aptly chosen, figures self-sug- 
gested, and nice discrimination between that which 
avails much and that which counts for nothing — must 
prove himself an artist. The master's touch is not 
the apprentice's dab, even when both use the same 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 65 

color. It is to language, heightened for the sake of 
picturesqneness, that Genung calls special attention, 
and he points out some of the means of attaining to 
this picturesqueness : 

(a) By imagery and word-painting. 

(b) By epithets — descriptive adjectives. These 
epithets are : (1) Essential Epithets, i. e.> epithets 
which designate some quality involved in the sub- 
stantive — 

"I wonder what the wet water is a-talking about?" 

(2) Decorative Epithets, giving some life or color- 
ing, naming some suggestive quality, some impres- 
sive association which is not involved in the noun. 

(3) Phrase Epithets, used largely for the purpose of 
condensation. 

(c) Words used in unusual senses may be pictur- 
esque, but they must be able to stand the scrutiny 
that their unfamiliarity challenges. An accidental 
in music written in a natural key must be empha- 
sized, lest it seem false. An unnatural word may 
be of service if, when emphasized, it reveals its fit- 
ness. 

5. Heightened. Genung rightly points out that, as 
poetry usually rises above the common place and 
seeks a higher plane, so its words must show this 
aim. It may, in great part, share words with prose, 
but now and then, with some frequency, too, it will 
make use of words that indicate its purer strain, its 
higher flight. 

(a) Archaic words, which seem but affectations in 
ordinary prose, may, like some trifling memento of 



66 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

a remote past, start day-dreams of indescribable 
beauty and tenderness, or lead us to moody reflec- 
tions. There may be a quiet pathos in this relic of 
a proud past. At any rate, these strange old words, 
like strange old fashions . seen in last century's pic- 
tures, may be quaint and pleasing. 

(b) Compound words may justify their composi- 
tion by the services they render. Rhythm fre- 
quently requires that syllables be dropped, and in 
this compression exacts strong syllables in the places 
of those lost light ones. The condensation of style 
favors the compression of thought. In the union of 
two words is often the strength adequate to the full 
duty of phrases or clauses. These compounds, too, 
since they are not so readily admitted in prose and 
rarely repeat themselves even in poetry, add in a 
marked degree to the elevation of poetic diction. 

III. The artist does not live to himself alone. "Art 
for art's sake" is the banner frequently unfurled by 
those who would shirk the artist's responsibility. 
u The artist's price, some little good of man." 

The poet, then, in his words may not consult merely 
himself and his themes, but the adaptation of both of 
these to each other, and of both to the reader — the public. 
It is not meant that the poet must always be conscious 
of his audience; much less must he pander to their 
transient and ill-judged demands, but he must so live 
and think that in his poetry he " dare do all that 
may become a man." Neither divine nor human law 
has set up a separate standard for artists. They have 
no letters-patent under which to bring blushes to 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 67 

modest cheeks, do dishonor to things counted high and 
lovely, or violence to chastity and purity of thought. If 
the poet would be a leader, he must take heed to his 
words. And as he is a leader, he should stand for that 
Pure Art which is founded upon the intense sincerity 
of individuality. He must cultivate that " large utter- 
ance" which is compounded of simplicity and richness, 
strength and delicacy, freedom without license, and 
grace with energy. He must know when his thoughts 
should be ornamented, painted with the coloring 
of emotion, ornately artistic, and when they should 
run with the rapidity of the unencumbered runner, 
strike with the directness of the clenched fist, or pre- 
sent the artistic severity of unimpassioned marble. To 
all his genuine work he will give a " dignity and dis- 
tinction" that comes from a fitting style, and he will 
set his face against the ready demand for a " dressy 
literature," the ornate art, which exists less for the art 
than the ornaments. He will spurn the glass-bead 
words, which catch the eye by their brilliant colors, 
but are hollow and fragile, as he will avoid the purple 
patches, which please the vulgar taste. In his words 
he will often teach the lessons of a noble self-restraint, 
a deep-planned condensation. Particularly must he be 
careful, if to him is granted the fatal facility of easy 
verse. The rattle of his meaningless words, however 
harmonious their jingle, must be his constant warning- 
bell against the dangers that lie in that direction. 

These suggestions as to diction may be fully illus- 
trated, and, of course, others, perhaps as important, 
be given. If by these the student's attention is called 
to the fundamental importance of the matter, and he 



68 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

be warned against leaving to chance what all good 
fortune, coupled with all due diligence, can never fully 
supply, the chief purpose of the words about diction 
is served. The master poets are, themselves, the best 
teachers of the lessons that lesser poets must learn. 

II. 

Some Characteristics of Poetic Style. 

The leading qualities of good, prose style, clearness, 
force and beauty, are, in different degrees, to be found 
in poetry as well, but there are, besides, certain qualities 
that seem to belong more distinctively to poetry. 

i. 

Conciseness. 
The very intensity of the meaning of poetry, its in- 
herent directness of thought, should lead to a character- 
istic conciseness of style. The poem may of course be 
long because it contains a good deal, but its contents 
should find an expression briefer than the fullness and 
amplification of prose usually require. All unneces- 
sary words may be omitted, elliptical constructions, 
where no ambiguity or un clearness is thereby intro- 
duced, are permissible ; clauses are reduced to phrases, 
and phrases frequently to compound words. Snggest- 
iveness is more sought after than full statement, and 
condensation for the purpose of vivacity and strength 
is cultivated. Such conciseness, however, should not 
on the one hand lead to unclearness, because of half- 
statements, mere hints, nor, on the other hand, to too 
bold and inartistic statement of some pivotal truth, 
around which the mind should have ample time to re- 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 09 

volve. The sin against conciseness is the turgidity 
that comes from following out in words every sug- 
gestion, in working out in detail every proposition, in 
penetrating the mystery of every figure, in unravelling 
the threads of every thought, in measuring with eye 
and rule every facet of every truth. This over-ampli- 
fication is deadening. It smothers many a weakling 
thought, and entangles even a giant thought in its 
meshes. Prolixity, the emptying horn of generous 
volubility, impoverishes the reader by the richness of 
its gifts. Better to say much in few words than little 
in many. The poet is never heard for his "much 
speaking." 

ii. 

Repetition and Parallelism. 

Different from the repetition of thoughts, or ideas, 
or even verbal amplification is the purposed repetition 
of words, collocations of words, for rhythmic or artistic 
effect. Several purposes may be served by this, as in- 
dicated by Smith (Repetition and Parallelism in Eng- 
lish Verse). The dynamic stress of prose may be drawn 
to a given point by the repetition of prominent words. 
This emphasis thus accomplished in prose may occur as 
well in poetry, though repetition more frequently pre- 
serves the unity of the mental picture or impression 
and recalls and effects a sonorousness. It is often used 
too to bind together successive rhythmic sentences, or 
to connect successive periods. 

Parallelism bears somewhat the same relation to 
poetry that the balance does to prose. It is generally 
extended repetition — that is, repetition of constructions 



70 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

and more complicated portions of the stanza. It is not 
used primarily for the purpose of emphasis or distinc- 
tion, but for rhythmic effect. It generally produces a 
lingering continuation of some sensation or thought. 
It is essentially musical. Examples of parallelism and 
repetition are so numerous that none are here given. 
Cf. Poe, Longfellow, Tennyson, Lanier, Browning, 
Swinburne, etc. For numerous examples, with inter- 
esting comments, see the discussion noted above. 




in. 

The Refrain. 

A characteristic use of repetition, or parallelism, is 
as a refrain. The repetend may occur, as for example, 
in some of the imitated foreign forms, at fixed places 
within the stanzaic structure, or it may occur, and more 
frequently, at the end. Again, the refrain may be 
metrical or verbal, that is it may be the repetition of 
some metrical structure different from the type of the 
stanza. This was called the wheel. Or, it may be the 
repetition of some word or words, or even rhythmic 
sentence. This may be borrowed from some part of 
the stanza, or, independently introduced into one stanza, 
it may be repeated in the others ; to this was given the 
name of burthen. If the wheel or burthen be very 
short, as compared with the prevailing length of the 
line, it was called the bob. 

The terminology here, however, is by no means so 
important as the phenomenon itself, and careful ex- 
amination of the character and source of the repetend, 
its use for artistic purposes, and its general rythmic ef- 
fect, will repay all trouble. 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 71 

IV. 

Inversion. 

To reverse normal order in prose, is to attract atten- 
tion to some word or words peculiarly placed. This 
change of order may be made effective either by di- 
recting emphasis, or by so adjusting parts of sentences 
as to make their relations to each other clearer. In 
poetry inversion is of very common occurrence, and 
may be used for several purposes. 

First, and most important, is the rearrangement for 
metrical correctness. Words of importance are thus 
brought into important places, and the conflict which 
might otherwise occur between the logical accent and the 
main rhythmical accents is thus avoided. Such inver- 
sion adds greatly to the rythmical flow and beauty of 
the verse-form. 

Second, as in prose, this inversion may bring nearer 
together in place, things that belong together in 
thought, and thus make more readily intelligible and 
more easy of interpretation passages that might other- 
wise be difficult. 

Third, inversion, by putting important ideas in im- 
portant places, adds to the emphasis and effectiveness 
of the thought. 

v. 

Onomatop^ia. 

Attention has already been called to the artistic ef- 
fect of making the sound (without reference to the 
meanings of the words) answer to the sense to be con- 
veyed. But this is not merely a metrical effect, it is 



72 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

stylistic as well, and may be used in several ways. 
The choice of the words to convey the sense may be 
so made, for instance, that the ease of pronounciation 
may reflect the smoothness of the thought, or the dif- 
ficulty, its ruggedness. This has been called muscular 
imitation, and it may be varied so as to be rather a re- 
minder, an analogy, than an imitation. This correlation 
of sound and sense is not confined to words or phrases; 
whole stanzas may be written with this in view, and 
often poems vary in expression with the impressions 
desired to be made upon the senses. Analyze, for ex- 
ample, the stanzas of Tennyson's Brook, or Read's 
Bay of Naples, etc. 

VI. 

The external, and perhaps somewhat formal, qualities 
of style mentioned are by no means so important as 
those which, characterizing the poet, reveal his individ- 
uality, his insight, his deep prophetic ken. JSTo note is 
here taken of his inspiration, his " visions of delight," 
his passionate yearning, the lofty reach of his aspiring 
soul. Nor can we here mention the purity of his 
poetic soul, which shines divinely in his best poetic ut- 
terance. These are higher and more important things 
than those discussed, but those mentioned may be used 
as scaffolding to climb to some higher point of view. 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 73 

KINDS OF POETRY. 

I. 

Epic. 

Epic poetry contained hymnic, legendary and mytho- 
logical elements. It began perhaps in celebration of 
the deeds of the gods, and then embraced heroes in 
their human experiences and at times lifted their heroes 
to gods. Hunt's definition is : Epic poetry is the pre- 
sentation in metrical narrative of some event heroic in 
its nature. Recalling the definition given of poetry in 
general, Epic poetry is the expression of heroic action 
in artistic verse. 

The action should show unity — that is, there should 
be one prominent event or chain of events to which 
all others are subsidiary and ancillary. It should be 
great and for the sake of perspective not of modern 
date. It should be in itself fraught with interest. 

The actors may be (1) general (i. e., the wise, the good, 
&c.) (2) particular — individuals eminent for bravery, 
wisdom, &c, (3) allegorical, (4) supernatural. As a 
rule in epic poetry there is not merely one central ac- 
tion, but one preeminent actor. The narration (i. e., the 
mode of expression in artistic verse) should be (1) sim- 
ple in construction for an obscure narrative cannot jus- 
tify itself, (2) perspicuous, (3) important and exalted in 
form, (4) animated, (5) dignified, (6) enriched with all 
the mechanical beauties of verse, (7) rich in (a) epithets, 
(b) episodes, (c) dialogue, (8) transfused with imagina- 
tion, (9) not concerned with enforcing a moral. 



74 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

Examples : Iliad, Odyssey, Eneid, Jerusalem De- 
livered, Dante's Dlvina Commedia, The Cid, The 
Niebelungen Lied, Beowulf, Miltorfs Paradise Lost, 
&c. 

Animal Epic— e. g. : Reynard, the Fox, &c. 

f National Legends— Havelok, King Horn, &c. 

I Church Legends— Judith, Elene, &c. 
Mptrioal Romances- ] Historical " —Alexander Saga,Troilus,&c 
Metrical Komances.i Historical— Evangeline, Hiawatha, &c. 

j Supernatural — Christabel, Ancient Mariner, 

L Idylls of the King, &c. 



O 



T3 
O 



Metrical Chronicle ; /Exs. : Layamon's Brut; Blind Harry's 
or, History in Metre. | Wallace ; Riming Chronicle, &c. 

Mixed-Epic— e. g. : Childe Harold. 

' Parody— Pope's Rape of the Lock— grand epic style 
applied to petty subjects. (By parody is also 
tviy^It Tr-nif. • J meant copying a serious poem with comic effect.) 
moiK JJ'P"'- 1 Travesty— Grand subject treated ignobly. 
j Humorous Epic— Byron's Don Juan (?) 
t Riddles, &c, Cynewulf's ; Praed's Charades. 



II. 

Lyric Poetry. 
[A discussion of lyric poetry will be added.] 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 



75 



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INTRODUCTORY NOTES 



Dramatic Poetry. 



Origin — natural, religious. — Definition : Drama is 
imitated human action; an epic made up of lyric 
parts ; that form in which the action is not related, 
but represented in the dialogue. 

History, Miracle (Mystery) Plays, Moralities, Foreign 
influences leading to classical drama, Interludes, Mod- 
ern Drama. 

Epic poetry is past, lyric present and dramatic the 
past in the present. Distinguish between dramatic 
and theatrical. 

- rharaotprs \ Sharply marked, 
cnaracters j With moveme nt of life. 

Representative. 

Dialogue in form J With monologue, 
uiaiogue in iorm < With C horus. 

Single controlling purpose (unity). 
Complete in itself. 

I Epic. 
Comprehensive •< Lyric. 

f Descriptive. 
Probable. 
(.Moral (good over evil). 
(Time. 

Unity -< Action. 

(Place. 
Impersonality of authorship. 



Characteristics 



Action 



Consistency j °j. 



of actions and actors. 



surroundings. 



Chief Divisions 



Mortal will at odds with fate. 

The representation of hu- 
man life in its most serious 
aspect. 

High seriousness. 
Tradegy-characteri sties -{ Earnestness is the essential 

of tragic representation. 

Katharsis— purification. 

Conclusion — generally 
death— foreshadowed. 

Inclines to verse. 

Triumph of individual over 
surroundings. 

Cheerful in tone. 

Tradegy with all the ele- 
ments of danger left out. 

The representative of hu- 
man life in its more jovial 
aud cheerful aspects. 

Conclusion— (generally mar- 
riage)— surprise. 
L Inclines to prose. 



Comedy-characteristics 



Subordinate form 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 77 

Specimens: — Othello (mistake), Macbeth (crime); 
imitations of the Greek : Milton's Samson Agonistes, 
Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon • Comedy : As You 
Like It, A Winter's Tale, &c. 

Reconciliation Drama (Versohnungs drama). The 

Merchant of Venice, Cymbeline, etc. 
Subjective Drama— Goethe's Faust. 
Historical Plays— based on fact— Henry V., VI., 
King John, etc. 
U nf U UMm« UI '" ^' Opera-Wagner's Tannhauser, etc.— Parsifal, Tris- 
u ma. ton and Isolde. Meyerbeer's Huguenots, etc. 

| Melodrama— drama with music. 

Farce — short comedy (in situation). 
I Masque (Mask)— Milton's Comas. 
t Pantomime. 

Crisis. 
I. Act. II. Act. III. Act. IV. Act. V. Act. 

Introduction | Growth | Clim ax | Fall, Consequences 1 Catastrophe 

Prologue ,~~ Epilogue 

tying. untying. 

CONSTRUCTION OF THE DRAMA. 

Examples : 

Hamlet. Vengeance. 

Act I. — Apparition of the Ghost. It appears to Hamlet. Ham- 
let convinced of the guilt of the king and his wife. 

Act II. — Hamlet's madness, and Hamlet's device to convict the 
king. 

Act III. — The betrayal of the king by means of the play. The 
king is convinced of Hamlet's madness. The murder of Polonius 
and the rebuke to Hamlet's mother. Reappearance of the Ghost. 

Act IV. — Hamlet ashamed of his own tardiness. Ophelia mad 
Laertes' wrath with the king and grief over Ophelia. Compact of 
the king and Laertes against Hamlet. 

Act V. — Churchyard. Burial of Ophelia. Hamlet explains sev- 
eral things to Horatio. The queen is poisoned. The king is stabbed 
and dies. Laertes dies, and then Hamlet. The only relief is the 
return of Fortinbras. 

Merchant of Venice. Jewish Vindictiveness. 

Act I. — Antonio's premonitory sadness. Bassanios' need of money 
to be a rival suitor for the hand of Portia, who must select her hus- 



j > 



78 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

band by lot. Bassanio borrows from Shylock, with Antonio as his 
security. 

Act II. — The Jew characterized by his servant, by his daughter. 
Drawing for the bride. Abduction of Jessica. Bassanio sets out 
for Belmont supported by Antonio's friendship. 

Act III. — Shylock's grief at the loss of his daughter and the 
greater loss of his ducats. His joy at Antonio's financial ruin and 
his determination to wreak vengeance. Bassanio wins Portia but 
learns of Antonio's loss. Antonio is reconciled to Shylock's determna- 
tion to have his life. 

Act IV. — The trial and the gifts of the rings. 

Act V. — The reconciliation. 

Corneille's Le Cid. Love and Duty (Conflict). 

Act I. — Don Diegue, the father of Bodrigue is insulted by Don 
Gomes the father of Chimene. 

Act IT. — The insult is washed out in the blood of Gomes, who is 
killed by Rodrigue — the lover of Gomes' daughter Chimene. 

Act III. — Chimene, frantic between love for the murderer and 
duty to her father, finally decides to seek vengeance on her lover 
and he determines to die. 

Act IV. — Persuaded by his father, he exposes himself in battle 
rather than die by his own hand. Does deeds of marvelous bravery. 
Wins the gratitude of the king. Chimene insists upon having his 
life. The king finally allows her to select a champion, on the con- 
dition that the victor shall claim her as his bride. 

Act V. — Bodrigue is victorious and awaits Chimene's promised 
fulfillment of her vow. 

Maria Stuart. The Death Sentence 

Act I. — Mary pleads for a fair trial. 

Act II. — Burleigh tries to pursuade Elizabeth to sign the decree. 
Elizabeth desires Mary's death by some other means. Leicester in- 
tercedes indirectly for Mary. 

Act III. — Climax. The meeting of Mary and Elizabeth at Fother- 
inghay. They mutually insult each other. 

Act IV. — The queen signs the decree. 

Act V. — The execution. 



to the study of poetry. 79 

Descriptive Poetry. 

A kind of Nature-Epic in which the mind is led 
from one object to another. It must be addressed to 
the imagination, and must exhibit vivacity and vigor 
of imagination. There must be judgment in selection. 
It must have human connection and human interest. 

Beware of overloaded description — expressions ele- 
vated above the thought. Distinguish between pictu- 
resque and literatesque. 

Specimens: Goldsmith's Deserted Village', Cowper's 
Task', Arnold's Sohradand Rust rum', Thomson's Sea- 
sons (fine imagination, correct taste, melodious language) 
Tennyson's Princess ; Homer, Vergil and Ossian. 

Of. Lanier's Com, &c. Edwin Arnold, p. 115-86. 

Pastoral Poetry. 

Narrative and descriptive. It grew up among shep- 
herds. Its origin among the Greeks. Theocritus first 
known poet of this kind; Vergil his successor (see be- 
low). Our first pastoral poets, Henry son, Robyne and 
Mackyne ; Spenser, Wm. Browne. 

Pastoral poetry (in general) must be beautiful, must 
be animated with sentiment — must preserve pastoral 
character in sentiment and action. The peasant is a 
lover, not a galant. 

Cf. Pope. Shenstone (our best pastoral poet) Ram- 
say's Gentle Shepherd ; Sidney's Arcadia, &c. 

KINDS OF PASTORAL POETRY. 

1. Dramatic — must please eye as well as ear, em- 
phasizes action. Cf. Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess ; 
Jonson's Sad Shepherd, &c. 



80 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

2. Eclogue. (Bucolic) — interesting picture of coun- 
try life — its charms borrowed (1) from nature (2) from 
the quiet and unconscious innocence of rural life — prob- 
ably the first form of cultivated poetry. 

It presupposes a state of peace, innocence and hap- 
piness, and is, therefore, a memory or a tradition rather 
than a reality. It is a cherished illusion which is a 
primal delight of man. 

Characters, generally shepherds and their friends, 
who need not be shepherds. 

Theocritus, the founder, is full of freshness and va- 
riety, and his elegance is sustained. 

Moschus and Bion give them even more finish and 
are less negligent. 

Yergil confesses Theocritus as his model. He is the 
only Latin pastoral poet. Perhaps, in his eclogues, 
( .:. the name) he surpasses Theocritus both in taste and 
elegance. 

These poems should be filled with life, warmth and 
sentiment. The tone is elevated, even to sublimity. 

Cf . Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar (and see above). 

3. Idyl — a picture, simple, calm ; dependent upon 
situation rather than action for effect ; needs recitation 
and sentiment. Here the poet paints with grace and 
moralizes with love ; a simple and sweet philosophy 
may pervade his musing. It must breathe the senti- 
ment it would inspire. Sensibility and charm of ex- 
pression are its characteristics. 

Cf . Pope, in the period of his youth ; Goldsmith's 
Deserted Village / Burns' Cotter's Saturday Night • 
Goethe's Hermann and Dorothea, (Gessner in Switzer- 
land). 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 81 

4. The Dramatic Idyl— -(XVth Idyl of Theocritus). 

5. Tageleider (albae) — Songs of Parting at Day- 
oreak, popular among the troubadours. Cf. Romeo 
and Juliet, iii., 5 (see Browning, In a Gondola). 

Didactic Poetry. 

Its purpose — to instruct, but with pleasure. It seeks 
to make its subjects pleasing by the harmony of the 
language and the colors and pictures borrowed from 
nature. Cf . Hesiod, Nicander, Lucretius, Vergil, Hor- 
ace. The poet must here show skill in ornamenting 
with elegance and grace. 

It is figurative, descriptive, dignified. It makes use 
of beautiful and interesting episodes. The versification 
should be scrupulously correct and melodious. The 
poet should know how to abandon precepts before they 
become wearisome. The kinds of Didactic Poetry are : 

1. Philosophical, or physical. Cf. Lucretius, The 
Phenomena of the Heavens', The Philosophy of 
Epicurus / Horace, The Art of Poetry y Vergil, The 
Theory and Practice of Agriculture. 

2. Meditative — Akenside, Pleasures of the Imagi- 
nation / Roger's Pleasures of Memory y Campbell's 
Pleasures of Hope. 

3. Moral — Pope's Essays on Man, on Criticism ; 
Father Ryan's Better than Gold, &a. 

Such poems are of peculiar interest to those who can 
appreciate the useful or perceive the importance of 
morality. 



82 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 



Satire. 



Origin with Simonides : its first use against women. 
At first among the Latins a dialogue song noted for 
vivacity of repartee. Later noted for its variety of 
form and unexpected contents. A Sature — lanx satu- 
ra — a medley. 

It is negative didactic poetry. 

It attacks (1) with rebuke and reprehension. Cf. 
Juvenal's vehement personal attack. Young. 
(2) with ridicule. Note Lucilius, Horace's grace, 
and Pope. 

Its purpose is to mock or to reprove. It sees the 
littleness of men and events. Cf . Heine's Purpose of 
Creation in his Harzreisen. 

The style is generally epic, that is Hexameter, or the 
Heroic Couplet. 

Cf. Jonson (?), Dry den, Marsteu, Donne, Butler's 

Hudibras, &e. 

Allegory. 

Definition — to speak other — a description of one 
thing under the image of another. 

(a). Didactic — Dante's Divina Commedia / Chau- 
cer's House of Fame ; Dunbar's Visions; Spenser's 
Faery Queen. 

(b). Social — The Vision Concerning Piers, The 
Ploughman. 

(c). Political — Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel. 

Fable. 

Allegory bounded by narrow limits — "the feigned 
history of a particular case, in which we recognize a 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 83 

general truth." The fable seems to be born when truth 
is repressed, proscribed or persecuted. 

Its origin is in the East with Vechnon Sarina, who 
wrote Hytopades — Useful Instruction — translated into 
English from the Sanskrit in 1787 — a fabulist prior to 
Bidpay (3d cy. B. C.), Lokman, or JEsop. 

The ^Esop of France was La Fontaine, of Germany 
Lessing, of England Gay, of Italy Piquotti. 

The Poetic Parable. 

is a fable with men instead of beasts as characters. 
Cf. Dryden, Chaucer, Rochester, Yoltaire and Leigh 
Hunt's Abou ben Adam. 

Ballads. 

1. Distinction between Volkspoesie and Kunstjpoesie. 

The folk-song must belong to tradition and must be 
suited to it. The folk-songs are those which did not 
have their origin in learned circles, and which have en- 
joyed a general popularity in the circles in which they 
have originated ; author and historical date unknown ; 
composed of the people and for the people ; themes 
often very ancient, and pointing in different countries 
to a common origin. In form, it means a song to which 
one may dance. In contents, it is spontaneous, follows 
the events; it is artless, but full of matter • adding no 
moral, but breathing a healthy popular spirit. 

The English ballads lacked merit ; were flat, garrul- 
ous, spiritless and didactic. Scotch ballads, reverse. 

The natural ballad degenerates as printed books in- 
crease, until it become a street song, &c. 



84 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 

('■ Romances of Chivalry and Legends of Popular History, i e., 
Historical or Mythico-Historical. 
Tragic— Love Ballads. 
Ballads. I Other Tragic Ballads. 

[ Love— Ballads not tragic. 

Cf . Percy's JReliques, Battle of Maldon, ByrhtnotNs 
Death. 

Imitated Ballads — Later Ballads — conscious and 
cultivated. 

The nearer they approach the genuine ballad the bet- 
ter they are. 

Cf . Scott's Imitations of the Ancient Ballad. 

Cf. Byrhtnoth? s Death, with Drayton's Battle of 
Agincourt. 



Imitated 
Ballads. 



Martial— Campbell's Battle of the Baltic. 

Love— Maude Muller, Lord Ullin's Daughter. 

Gay— Burns' Duncan Gray, or John Barleycorn. 

\ Historical— Macauiay's Lays of Ancient Rome. 

Dramatic— Browning. 

fin situation— John Gilpin. 
Comic -< in interpretation— Goldsmith's Elegy on the Death 
I of a Mad Dog. 

i dramatic — tragic— pure objective. 
Ballads shade off into < lyric— emotional— individual (simple and sin- 

( cere). 

Narrative Poetry. 

Ballad form unfavorable to narrative composition. 
Narrative composition is very old — it is the first form 
of recorded history — chanted rather than spoken. .*. 
too, the first music. As history becomes richer and 
more complex, so does narrative poetry. 

Narrative poetry is closely allied to epic poetry, and 
has many of the same characteristics. 

1. There must be a coherent plan, and this requires 
a forecast of the whole. 



TO THE STUDY OF POETRY. 85 

2. The narrative may (1) follow the order of events ; 
(2) begin in the middle, or even at the end. 

3. Its interest is to be sought (1) in the story ; (2) in 
the manner of recital. 

Aristotle holds that the story and the manner of ar- 
ranging it may be of more importance than the com- 
position of the verse. 

The story should in itself be interesting, but it may 
be rendered even more so in the recital by taste, imagi- 
nation and a quality that naturalizes it everywhere. 

There should be : 

1. Choice and variety of expression. 

2. Richness of imagery. 

3. Force and grace of thought. 

4. Truth of sentiment. 

5. Movement. (This to be retarded or accelerated at 
will. 

6. Happy ending — triumph of the hero ; punish- 
ment of crime ; coronation of virtue. 

7. Episodes — never totally extraneous. 

Verse-form (Scott's choice of the romantic stanza), 
a measured short line — used in minstrel poetry. 
Disadvantage — it is so easy that it may inculcate a 
slovenly habit. 

The Lay of the Last Minstrel — "a mescolanza of 
measures." 

The interest attaching to narrative poetry. 
Poets — Chaucer, Scott, Wordsworth, etc. 



86 INTRODUCTORY NOTES 



Epigram. 



Short — frequently four lines — based generally on 
antithesis, sometimes a pun. (The word means written 
on something, say a window pane, or a wall.) 

The qualities rare in a bee that we meet 

In an epigram never should fail : 
The body should always be little and sweet, 

And a sting should be left in its tail. 

This is true of English and French and late Latin, 
but not of classic epigram before Martial. 
Martial, Hey wood. 

Inspiration. 
Should be short — le style lapidaire — cold — faultless. 

Epitaph. 

Written on a tombstone — -modest — serious — sad — 
reflective — grave — religious — good judgment in seiz- 
ing that which may be praised, and delicacy and taste 
in expressing it — sometimes pleasant, even mocking. 

Johnson, Milton, etc. (Cf. Cenotaph.) 

Epithalamium. 

A marriage song — bright, fresh, gleesome, musical, 
jesting. 

Spenser, Jonson, Sidney, etc. 

Too often suggestive and vulgar. 

Note the shorter Elizabethan Bridal Songs. 

Society Yerses. 

Fugitive Poems. 

Occasional Poems. 




i 



if 

4* 






INTRODUCTORY NOTES 



TO THE 



STUDY OF POETRY 




BY 



CHARLES W. KENT, M. A., Pli. D., 

Professor of English Literature in the University of Virginia. 







Published by 

ANDERSON BROS., 

Publishers and Booksellers, University Station, 

Charlottesville, Virginia. 

1895. 



